1921-04-07

PRIVATE BILLS COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. MICHAEL STEELE (South Perth) presented the report of the Select Standing Committee on Private Bills.

[Stage Direction]
Return showing quotations of different classes of Grand Trunk Railway Company's stock in January 1918, etc.-Hon. Mr. Reid (Grenville).

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. MURPHY:: 1.	What rates are paid now as compared with 1916 on Canadian National Railways, per month, per day, or per hour, for the following classes of employees :-Engineers, Firemen, Conductors, Trainmen, Shop Mechanics, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shed Men, Trackmen, Bridge and Building Men?
2.	Have there been any particular changes since 1916 in working conditions, such as length of working day, overtime regulations, etc., which further increased compensation over changes in rates, if so, what are such changes for each of the classes named in Question number one?
3.	What would be the comparative monthly compensation as between now and 1916 paid each to engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen (allowing average overtime conditions), in the following classes of service:- Through passenger run, Local passenger run. Through freight service, Local freight service.
4.	What are the monthly earnings as compared with 1916 for the following classes of employees working full regular working hours :[DOT]-Shop Mechanics, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shed Men, Trackmen, Bridge and Building Men?
5.	What would be the monthly earnings of the classes of employees named in question 4 if required to work the same regular working hours as existed in 1916 at present rates as compared with the rates paid in 1916?
6.	Do any of the classes of employees named in the foregoing questions receive any compensation or privileges in addition to their rates of pay, such as commissions, free or reduced rental, living accommodation, fuel, light, transportation, etc? If so, in a general way what are such concessions and what are they valued at in individual cases?


Hon. Mr. REID (Grenville) :: The answer is a very lengthy one and would take about half an hour to read. The subject, however, is a very important one and if possible I would like the information to appear in Hansard.


Mr. LEMIEUX:: Dispense with the reading of it.
[Note.-The answer to the foregoing question is given as an appendix to this days Debates.


TORONTO POST OFFICE-PROMOTIONS
Mr. HOCKEN:: 1.	How many promotions have been made in the Toronto Post Office since February 1, 1921?
2.	Under what authority were the promotions made?
3.	What are the names of the persons so promoted?


Hon. Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	Two. There may be certain officers in the Toronto Post Office whose rating was improved under the reclassification but these cannot be regarded as promotions.
2.	Under the authority of the Civil Service Commission.
3.	Miss E. A. Robinson and H. Davis.


REV. N. TAPPERT
Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: 1.	Did the Government of Canada, at any time during the past six years, pay compensation to the Rev. N. Tappert, an American citizen resident, some years ago, in the city of Kitchener, for injury suffered at the hands of a mob?
2.	If so, what was the amount of said compensation?
3.	If not, was any demand for compensation made, at what date and by whom?


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: 1.	No.
2 and 3. Answered by No. 1.


S.S. CANADIAN BEAVER
Mr. SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guys-borough) :: 1.	Did the steamer Canadian Beaver sail from Halifax for Barbados on or about March 28, 1921?
2.	Is this steamer equipped for passengers? If so, for how many?
3.	How many passengers did this vessel carry on the said trip?
4.	What is her deadweight tonnage and how many tons of freight did she carry from Halifax on said trip?


Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE:: 1.	The Customs reports indicate that the steamer Canadian Beaver cleared from Halifax for Barbados on or about March 26, 1921.
2.	No.
3.	The department has no information.
4.	The deadweight tonnage of the vessel is 3,9724 tons. The department has no information as to the quantity of freight carried on the voyage referred to.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-FOREMEN AND ENGINES
Hon. Mr. LEMIEUX:: 1.	How many road foremen of engines are at
present employed by the Canadian National Railways?	,
2.	What are the wages paid to said employees?
3.	What are the duties of said employees?


Hon. Mr. REID (Grenville) :: 1.	Officers formerly known as Road Foremen of Engines are now called Assistant Master Mechanics. There are 32 now employed on Canadian National railways.
2.	Various rates from $250 to $325 per month.
3.	Assistant Master Mechanics deal with mechanical matters on Superintendents'



Divisions to which they are assigned, including supervision of enginemen and shop staffs.



SUPPLY-RESOLUTION FOR ONE-SIXTH OF AMOUNT REQUIRED FOR NEXT FISCAL YEAR QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS

Mr. REID (Mackenzie) :: 1.	What is the total number of persons in the employ of the Dominion Government, including bbth the inside and outside services, hut not including the Canadian National Railways?
2.	How many persons are in the employ of the Canadian National Railways?


Mr. WRIGHT:: X, How many employees has the Government in the British Isles?
2.	What is the number of departments maintained?
3.	How many employees has the Government in the United States?
4.	What is the number of departments maintained?



PROPOSED GRAIN INQUIRY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Marquette) :: Before the Orders of the Day are called I would like to ask a question of the Government with reference to a despatch from the special correspondent of the Montreal Gazette, appearing in that paper I believe on Monday last, to the effect that the Government has decided upon a grain inquiry, and that the two commissioners in the said inquiry would he Judge Hyndman, of Edmonton, and Mr. Staples, one of the present Board of Grain Commissioners. I would like to ask the Prime Minister if that statement is correct?


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Prime Minister):: The Government has not appointed any person on the grain inquiry, nor has there been any Order put through for an inquiry under the Act. Requests have been made to see if certain parties would accept; beyond that nothing has been done.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I would further ask if the Government has decided upon such inquiry, and if so when it will be undertaken?


Arthur Meighen: The Government's decisions in these matters are embodied in Orders in Council, as my hon. friend very well knows from his experience and from his undoubted intelligence, and when the Order is passed it will appear.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Not a very illuminating reply.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: Do you expect anything else?

On motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance) the House went into Committee of Supply, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON moved:: Resolved that a sum not exceeding $71,499,703.70, being one-sixth of the amount of each of the several items set forth in the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1922, and one-sixth of the amount of the item for a provisional bonus allowance for the Inside and Outside services of the Civil Service, set forth in the Supplementary Estimate for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1922, be granted to His Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1922.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: How much?


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@: It would perhaps be better for the Chairman to again repeat the motion. It is made by the hon. Minister of Finance for one-sixth of the entire Supply for the present year. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?
? Mr. MACKENZIE KING: Mr. Chairman, I think very strong exception should be taken to acceding to the request of the Government. We on this side of the House have repeatedly pointed out that the only way in which the public can exercise its control over expenditures is to have ample opportunity of discussing the Estimates in detail before any part of them is voted. We wish to preserve the public in that right, particularly as the expenditures are mounting up as never before in the history of this country, the total Estimates for this year thus far presented being between $500,000,000 and $600,000,000. We have had very little opportunity of discussing these Estimates, many items of which are liable to be subjected to considerable criticism and, we hope, considerable reduction. Without giving the House full opportunity of considering all the Estimates, we contend that we should not be called upon to vote blindly one-sixth of the total amount as the Government is asking.
I would point out that at the conclusion of last session we drew the attention of the Government to the circumstance that in order to give Parliament the opportunity it should have to control public expenditures, it was desirable that Parliament should be called earlier in the new calender year, if not before the close of the year preceding, and we received assurances from members of the Government that such

would be done. The fact that Parliament was not called until the middle of February is no fault of hon. members, it is entirely the fault of the ministry. Under these circumstances, Mr. Chairman, standing on the broad principle of the right of the people to a full knowledge of what is to be done with the money which they are obliged to pay in the form of taxation, we must take strong exception to granting the portion of the Supply asked for and so depriving the House of the opportunity of discussing the items in detail.
But in taking this stand we have no desire in any way to embarrass or penalize the Civil Service because of any neglect on the part of the Government, we will be perfectly willing to consider any arrangement with a view of providing what may be necessary in the way of salaries both for the Inside and Outside Services. As respects other expenditures, however, we contend that except as agreed upon, this Parliament should have the full right of examining in the closest detail every item of the Estimates before voting any portion of them.	'	^


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mr. Chairman, it is quite correct that the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) did draw the attention of the Government to the advisability of having the business brought down at an earlier date, and I think it has been. It is quite true that he also, during last session, took exception to the practice of voting interim Supply. His objections are objections which apply to a principle that has obtained for many years, and I am very much afraid that, apart altogether from what we might like to do, the exigencies of parliamentary government mean that this principle of interim Supply is something which we will have to continue. It is not a new principle. that is being now attacked, nor is it a principle which is confined to Canada. It is something which has to be done in every country where parliamentary government is carried on and the public moneys are dependent upon the votes of deliberative associations or parliaments.
In view of the objection raised by my hon friend on the matter of principle, I have taken the trouble to look up one or two precedents to see just exactly what this principle is and what it is founded upon. I will read in the first instance from "Procedure in the British House of Commons," by Redlich, a leading authority. This is what he says:
106J
There is no need here to add anything to what has already been said about the former (Supplementary Estimates), but it is necessary to study a little more closely the mode in which the (House of Commons provides for current necessities before the final Estimates are adopted. The peculiarity consists in the fact that a grant on account, a temporary provision for national financial administration, has been converted into a necessary organic part of the year's finance. As the financial year closes on the 31st March, and Parliament does not receive the Estimates until about the beginning of the same month, it is absolutely impossible for the year's Supply to be granted before the year begins. Moreover, the traditional arrangement of parliamentary business makes the extension of the debate on Supply over the whole length of the session, or at all events over the greater part of it, an indispensable necessity of political tactics and parliamentary management. On the other hand, the Government must have money by the first of April, and can only get it from Parliament. The annual provision required is not made, as in most Continental countries, by giving temporary authority to levy taxes and incur expenses on the same footing as in the old year, nor is there a grant of an aliquot part of the estimated total as in the case of the twelfths of the French budget. The method adopted brings out clearly the financial supremacy of the House of Commons which grants votes on account, advances on the basis _ of the Estimates laid before the House.
At one time, Mr. Chairman, we had not as much difficulty in connection with interim Supply as we have had of recent years. When our fiscal year ended on June 30, as there was that much longer time greater progress could be made with the Estimates. But even under the old regime-and I have not thought it necessary to go back more than a certain number of years-when the fiscal year ended on June 30, I find that in the session of 1899 interim Supply was passed in connection with the following dates: Parliament opened on March 16, closed on August 11; main Estimates were tabled on April 24-over a month after Parliament opened-and the interim Supply was voted on July 5. Then again, in 1903, we had an interim vote of one-fifth and the dates were: Parliament opened on March 12, closed October 24; main Estimates tabled March 16, interim Supply voted on July 8. In the following year, 1904, there was an interim Supply Bill. Then the fiscal year is changed, and the change becomes effective in the year 1906-07. In 1907 the interim Supply Bill was for one-fifth. In 1908 there were two interim Supply Bills, the first for one-eighth and the second for one-eighth. In 1909 the interim Supply voted was one-fourth; in 1910, one-fourth. In 1911 there were two, the first-


Mr. CANNON:: May I ask the minister
where this resolution is to be found on the Order Paper?


Henry Lumley Drayton: It is not on
the Order Paper. The resolution is brought up in the ordinary way in committee, notice having been given the night before last.


Lucien Cannon: I understand that the
minister is now introducing a resolution upon which a Bill is to be based.


Henry Lumley Drayton: This is in
Supply. It is a motion for interim Supply.


Lucien Cannon: It will be a Bill for
interim Supply?


Henry Lumley Drayton: A motion for interim Supply, on which, of course, a Bill will subsequently be founded, just as a bill is subsequently founded on the main motion for Supply.


Lucien Cannon: Then I rise to a point
of order. If a bill for interim Supply is to be based on the resolution, I submit that the resolution should have been preceded by notice. There has been no notice of the resolution; it is not on the Order Paper, and I submit that any discussion of it at this stage is not in order.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Unless I am
entirely wrong, the hon. member will find that notice of a motion 'of this kind has never been given. Notice is not given of motions made in Committee of Supply; they all come under the general motion with reference to Supply.


Lucien Cannon: There is a distinction
to be made. To-day the Speaker left the Chair without motion and we automatically went into Supply; if we had taken up the Estimates of one special department the minister at the head of that department could have introduced a resolution and no notice would have been necessary. But this is altogether different. The minister in introducing a resolution now is laying the foundation for a money Bill, and such a resolution should be preceded by notice. We have had no notice and I submit that the procedure followed by the minister is altogether irregular and that the committee at this stage cannot consider the resolution. This is a resolution preceding an interim money Bill; it is not the ordinary going into Supply to consider the Estimates of one particular department.


The CHAIRMAN:: Does any other hon.
gentleman desire to speak to the point of order before a decision is given?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I should like
to say, Mr. Chairman, that I have been unable to find any cases in which such

notice has been given as the hon. gentleman suggests. The practice followed is the practice indicated by the law officers of the Crown as being the correct one.


Georges Henri Boivin: The point of order,
as I understand it, which has been raised by the hon. member for Dorchester (Mr Cannon) is that as the House to-day went automatically into Committee of Supply and we are not considering the Estimates of any particular department, this resolution should have been preceded by notice. There is nothing in the rules of the House, nothing in the procedure and in the precedents reported by different authors on the subject, which in any way indicates that a resolution for interim Supply-in other words, a vote on account-must be nreceded by a notice of motion of any kind. The Estimates were submitted to Parliament with a message from the Governor General; they were referred to the Committee of Supply and the entire Estimates are before that committee to be dealt with as the committee may see fit. If the Committee of Supply desires to vote at one time ont-fifth or one-sixth of the total amount, the committee certainly has that right. Therefore, so far as the question of notice is concerned, no notice is required, and I would so rule. The hon. member for Dorchester did, however, draw attention to the fact that to-day the Speaker-


Arthur Meighen: I did not hear the hon. member raise the other point to which you are now proceeding, Mr. Chairman, as to this being Thursday; I would like to have spoken to it. I feel that a reading of the rule would make it clear that it was not intended to apply to prevent a motion for interim Supply being made on Thursday.


Mr. FIELDING:: Why?


Arthur Meighen: I will give the reason in a moment. If the Chair held that that was the rule, I do not know that the Government would be at any disadvantage, because if it is the meaning of the rule that we cannot take a general vote on a fraction of Supply on Thursday or Friday unless all departments have been in Supply previously, then necessarily if we were to move a motion for interim Supply on Tuesday, on Thursdays and Fridays, after that we could go on with anything. It would work both ways, and I think that was never intended.


William Stevens Fielding: I shall not deal now with the general question of notice; I shall, if I am permitted, deal with that a moment later. Under the rules-rules, by

the way, for which I do not think we on this side are particularly responsible, but rules which in its judgment the House at the time of their adoption deemed wise-the House may go into Supply on Thursday and Friday without any delay, without any debate. But there is a condition attached- that you cannot take up in the Committee on those days the Estimates of any department which have not previously been under consideration. Now, there are a number of departments the Estimates of which have not yet been under consideration. I think I am correct in saying that, though I know the right hon. gentleman would endeavour to get around the rule by taking an odd item here and there and in that way bringing in all the departments. Now, if vve could not under that rule take up a given item in any one of these departments whose Estimates have not previously been considered, I do not see how we can take them all in bulk. It seems to me that a motion of this kind can only be adopted by general consent or agreement.


Arthur Meighen: I simply want to
emphasize again the fact that if that view is held, it necessarily follows that on Thursday and Friday we can go into Supply on any department at all.


William Stevens Fielding: We will argue that when it occurs.


Arthur Meighen: There is no question at all that that follows; that there is no escape from it. I do not think that would be fair to the House, though it certainly would be a great advantage to the Government.


Georges Henri Boivin: As this further point has now been discussed by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen) and by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), I must point out that Rule 17c states, in part:
On Thursdays and Fridays.... Mr. Speaker shall leave the Chair without putting any question, provided that, except by the consent of the House, the Estimates of each department shall be first taken up on a day other than Thurday or Friday.
There are in the Estimates which are now being considered in the interim Supply vote the Estimates of all departments, and the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's has pointed out that the Estimates of a number of those departments have not yet been considered. For that reason, they cannot be considered on a Thursday or a Friday without the unanimous consent of this committee and the Chair is obliged to so rule.
If the committee desires the Chairman to continue the ruling and decide the question of what may happen later-


William Stevens Fielding: I submit that the
Chairman ought not to be asked to decide now what he will do next week. I do not desire to take technical grounds of objection. I would like to assist the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) if I could in this matter, because I know from experience the embarrassments suffered on occasions of this kind. The real difficulty is, of course, that the Government-and perhaps other governments have done likewise-have been slow in summoning Parliament. Parliament should be called early, and the idea of Parliament being summoned to meet early in February and expected to get a Supply Bill through before the end of March, is unreasonable. I have no doubt, however, my hon. friend can cite previous cases where Parliament has not been called early. We all want to see that members of the Civil Service at Ottawa-and I would not confine this to Ottawa; wherever there is a wage earner in the employ of the Government-should receive their salaries. Because they are not usually rich men. I think a reasonable view of the matter would be that the hon. gentleman should ask by common consent of the House- and I do not want to oppose him-for a vote on account, with the condition that it will be applied only to wages, salaries and things of that sort. Let me state my reasons for taking this ground. As an illustration, suppose there are large sums which have been appropriated for the railways, concerning which there is much contention, and let us suppose that we on this side haVe good grounds for opposing any one of those appropriations. We desire an opportunity to discuss them, to divide the House upon them-I am only supposing; -we may be wrong, but that is our right, and we ought not to have any interference with our right. Here we are, going to make a vote of those very appropriations to which, perhaps, we are opposed in toto. That is not reasonable, and I would suggest to the hon. gentleman that he might get over this difficulty by agreeing, either now or at a later stage, that the Supply for which he is asking now should be applied only to salaries, wages and purposes of that kind. That would be a fair proposal.
My hon. friend is sometimes sensitive- I will not say unduly sensitive-in the matter of notice. This is a matter of which we have had substantially no notice at all. Last night when we asked about the busi-

ness of to-day, we had no intimation given to the House that this matter was to come up, although it appears that some mention was made of it on a previous occasion. It does not appear on the Order Paper, nor on the Votes and Proceedings. I do not take the technical objection that it is not on the Order Paper, but I do not know of a motion of this kind having ever been brought up before without a previous understanding with the leader of the Opposition. I do not say that that is necessary; but I speak from experience, and I am quite sure I am correct when I say that, in all my experience, no motion of this kind was ever before made without a previous understanding between the Minister of Finance and the leader of the Opposition. No mention of this matter was made last night when we asked about the business of the day, although we may be told that some mention was made of it the other day and we can find it if we look at Hansard. I do not, however, wish to take a technical objection; my desire is to assist the Minister of Finance, and my suggestion, which I make entirely for myself, is that we agree to give the Government this Supply with the distinct understanding that it shall apply only to salaries, wages and urgent matters of that kind.	i


Sir ROBERT BORDEN:: I have had a good deal of experience in matters of this kind, both in Opposition and while a member of the Government. It is perfectly obvious that you can get a vote on account only by consent, because on every item with respect to a vote on account, you could take up just as much time as you could in passing the entire Estimates. Therefore, it goes without saying that this must be by consent. The point to which the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding has called attention is one that has arisen in the past, and it has always been met by this understanding- in numerous cases in my experience, both while in Opposition and while a member of the Government-on the part of the Government of the day, that any vote on account of any particular item shall not in the least prejudice the right of the Opposition to attack that item and to move for its reduction or its total removal from the Estimates.


William Stevens Fielding: In the meantime, it might have been spent.


Robert Laird Borden: Only a very small fraction. At all events, whether the method to which I have alluded

is right or wrong, it is one that has always been pursued in the past. it' is quite correct, as the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's has said, that there is a conference in these matters between the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition, and I gathered that there had been a conference with regard to the matter in this particular instance.


William Stevens Fielding: I understand, not.


Robert Laird Borden: If that is not the ease, my hon. friends have the matter before them now, and if they desire that there shall be a further delay until a further conference or a conference takes place, that course should be pursued in such ail instance. I should like to say that I myself tried once, in Opposition, under what I thought were somewhat serious circumstances, the policy of refusing any vote on account, and before ten days were over, I got very tired of my position, because I heard, I think, from every province and from nearly every community in Canada on the subject. I should be very sorry to seethe policy, which has been followed in the past, permitting a vote on account in the public interest and for the public service, to be abondoned in this Parliament for the first time.


Rodolphe Lemieux: It is always a pleasure to listen to the right hon. gentleman, and I wish we would hear him speak more often. He has just reminded the House that he has done some little obstruction in the past. In one instance he succeeded, unfortunately, and as a result he is somewhat responsible for the state in which the country is to-day. I wish to tell my right hon. friend and the leader of the Government (Mr. Meighen that no one on this side, during the great crisis through which the country is passing, is desirous of obstructing the country's business; but the country has a right to expect that the affairs of this House shall be conducted in the old traditional way. What is the principal function of this House, if it is not the control of the expenditure of public moneys? It is the traditional function of Parliament to control the expenditure of public moneys. We are to-day passing through the most serious financial crisis through which this country has ever experienced, and we are asked to rush this interim Supply on account without any scrutiny. We have to face huge deficits, and the amounts asked in the Estimates are beyond the means of the Canadian people un-

less we resort to extreme taxation measures. Yet, the right hon. gentleman (Sir Robert Borden) comes with a smile and pleads and says: " I have tried obstruction on similar lines in the old days; I have not succeeded. People soon began clamouring for the money." My hon. friend will not hear to-day from the country what he says he heard ten of fifteen years ago about expenditure. Then the people were willing to spend money; they knew the country was rich, but this is not the mood of the Canadian people to-day. They want to see reduction in military expenditures, reduction on the merchant marine and or the naval programme; reduction in expenditure on the Mounted Police. I repeat again: I do not care to resort to obstruction. This is not a time to play politics.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Rodolphe Lemieux: If the Tories are willing to play politics, the Liberals and the Progressives are not. Further, I would like to make this statement: In view of the deficit of $70,000,000 which was proclaimed throughout the whole country the other day by the Minister of Railways and Canals, some one in this House should have the courage to demand that that deficit shall not be met by additional taxation, but by a reduction in the Estimates. In view of the financial situation in which the country finds itself to-day, that is the only way in which that deficit ought to be met. I, for one, am not afraid of what may be said in the back concessions about the expenditure of public moneys. I am listening to the voice of my conscience.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Who is the man that
has not a conscience? Mr. Chairman, I will have the courage to back up my words, and I shall await the verdict of the House. If not I personally, some on in authority on this side of the House will propose a serious cut in the expenditure this year. I am ready to reduce the amount provided in the Estimate'

^ at least $50,000,000. We are asked "to v\. one-sixth of the total Estimates and I understand from the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Meighen) that there will ' )e no expenditure on items which might be considered contentious. I accept his word, as I would the word of the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton), but I say that this is not the proper way to conduct the public business. Let us get back to (gnrmal. We have lost our bearings for the six years. We have been rolling in
millions since the war, and the right hon. the member for King's (Sir Robert Borden) is largely responsible for the reckless expenditure of public moneys during the war. It is well to-day that he should help by his advice and by his presence the unfortunate heir to the legacy which he has left to the country. I say, let us return to the normal, and I am here only repeating what several hon. members who are supporters of the Government and what the people at large are saying. It is time we should get back to a common-sense basis in this country. We have been spending too recklessly. Surely, it is time to stop. My hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, who was elected chiefly because he was a business man, has practically lost all his reputation in that respect since he joined the Government. Once more, let us get back to normal. Let us live no longer in a fool's paradise. The trouble to-day, Mr. Chairman, is that we do not control the expenditure ; we do not scrutinize in detail the items in the Estimates, but pass them holus-bolus. In a few days the Budget, I suppose, will be delivered, and after some weeks' discussion we shall have reached the dog-days and every member will be anxious to get home. Then the people of this country will be burdened once more with a bill of expenditure which can only be met by more taxation. Mr. Chairman, I protest against that mode of procedure. I say, let the Committee of Supply of this House of Commons get back to its traditional function of scrutinizing every item, and reducing the expenditure where that is necessary. Then hon. gentleman opposite may come and ask us to pass certain non-contentious votes, if they be such that the House of Commons will agree to them. But as a representative of the people, and as a taxpayer, I protest against the high-handed procedure which the present motion, if carried, will occasion.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I must thank the right hon. member for King's, the exPrime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) for reminding the House and indeed the Prime Minister himself, that courtesy and conference should be a part of the proceedings of this House. Let me say in reference to what my right hon. friend has said that I have always understood that in matters of interim Supply there would be something in the nature of a conference between the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition before anything of the kind was sprung upon the House. In the present case, no conference of any kind has taken place between the right hon. the Prime

Minister (Mr. Meighen) and myself, or between the hon. the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) and myself. The motion this afternoon is the first intimation I have had of any intention on the part cf the Government to bring up to-day an interim Supply vote.
In order that the House may fully appreciate the significance of the action of hon. gentlemen opposite in attempting to rush this matter through, may I direct the attention of hon. members to the fact that the amount we are asked to vote now, if one-sixth of the Supply as set out in the Estimates, is little less than $100,000,000. We came into this House without the slightest warning one way or the other that we should be asked to vote $100,000,000 and we are told by hon. gentlemen opposite that by virtue of the force of their majority they intend to rush that amount through this Parliament without affording any opportunity whatever for consideration of the expenditures involved thereby. If my right hon. friend is going to rely upon might as his means and method of carrying on the business of this Parliament he may do so, but I tell him that all such methods of might are Prussian methods. I propose that we on this side of the House shall take our stand in accord with British methods-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hon. gentlemen opposite do not seem to appreciate what is meant by the word British. I wish to tell them that wherever there has been a Parliament carried on in accordance with British traditions, it has stood for the rights of the people in protecting them against extravagant expenditure on the part of the Government. It has stood for the rights of the people's representatives in Parliament to control public expenditure and the public purse, and that right has always been exercised in Committee of Supply by allowing the freest latitude to hon. members to discuss every single item in the Estimates before the money with respect thereto is appropriated by Parliament. There are only two methods of conducting public business:	one is the
method of relying upon reason, upon discussion, upon conference; the other is the method of relying upon might, upon force. There is no other alternative. Hon. gentlemen opposite have not even attempted the first method. They have not even accorded us an opportunity of considering whether the particular vote they are asking Parliament to accede to to-day 
should or should not be granted, either in whole or in part. I say, Mr. Chairman we on this side of the House will not consent to vote any $100,000,000 by virtue of the force of the majority which the Government has behind them. We will expect at least something in the nature of a conference between the two sides, or there will be no acceptance of the proposal to vote any such amount.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I would like to join with my hon. friend in what he says as to the exercise of courtesy in this chamber. I would like to see some at least of our important business discussed without perhaps quite as much heat, and perhaps a little more fairly. There is no doubt about one thing, and that is that we should give proper notice, but I had understood that the hon. gentleman had absolutely refused to have anything to do with interim Supply. I may be wrong, but unless my ears are very far from being per- -less my eyes are very far from being perfect, he solemnly declared in this House this very session that there would be no interim Supply. So under the circumstances I did not know of any other way of bringing up the matter than the one in which it has now been brought up. But I want to say this: if, notwithstanding my hon. friend's declaration of weeks ago, he is not to-day willing to discuss this question, I certainly do not want to take him by surprise, and I would be willing to have the matter stand. But before it does stand I think we ought to understand a little more clearly just where we are and what we are at.
In the first place, I wonder if we can get away from dealing in extravagant statements.


Lucien Cannon: I did not wish to interrupt the minister, and I am prepared to accord him every courtesy to which he is entitled. On the other hand, I desire to remind the committee that the chairman has ruled this discussion out of order.


Mr.   CHAIRMAN@: The chairman did not exactly rule that the discussRljprros out of order. Ho ruled that the re^utiori could be n sidere.	nly by unanimous consent.
The	"" clearly given	-s
hon.
procet sumed mous co.
Mr. CA
The CH; to any motk

sent, any hon. member has the right at any time, before the motion is carried, to object to the discussion. The hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Cannon) having objected,
I must maintain his objection; but in all fairness to the hon. Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) I think that by unanimous consent he might be allowed to conclude his remarks and we could then proceed to some other item.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Before leaving the question of notice, the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Meighen), calls my attention to the fact that on the night before last notice was given that we intended to bring up this question. That notice was given in this way:
Mr. Mackenzie King: What business will be taken up to-morrow?
Mr. Meighen: The House will be moved into Committee of Supply on Labour and Railway Estimates; those are what we will take up first. There may be two or three Government orders that would be gone on with first, but not such as would likely be contentious. Notice was given to-day of a motion for interim supply, which, if the notice is sufficient, will be gone on with.
I may say that instructions were given to the law officers to give notice, but they say that it is not necessary, and should not be given, and that is consonant with the ruling given to-day by the chairman.
Mr. Mackenzie King: When was that notice given?
Sir Henry Drayton: This afternoon, I think.
Mr. Mackenzie King: I am not aware of it.
Mr. Meighen: It would simply be handed in.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Go on; read
the whole of it: "I suppose."


Henry Lumley Drayton: (Reading):
Mr. Mackenzie King: "I suppose" my right hon. friend speaks of going on with the Estimates of the Railway Department to-morrow. Possibly the motion of which he has just given notice had better be disposed of before we go on with the Railway Estimates. We would dike to know before we discuss those Estimates what information we are likely to get from this committee when it functions.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is no
statement there that this matter would be definitely taken up.


Henry Lumley Drayton: There is
an intimation there to the effect that a motion for interim supply would be proceeded with.


William Stevens Fielding: For the next day's
business. The intimation we received last night was different.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perfectly true, but I do not know that that was evasive. The statement of the Prime Minister was plain-


Mr. LAPOINTE :: As all the Prime Minister's statements are.


Henry Lumley Drayton: -and I do not think that hon. gentlemen will receive the greatest degree of courtesy in this House if idle charges of evasion are to be hurled across the floor. The language
4 p.m. I have quoted is plain and speaks for itself. Now, let us see if we can get down from extravagant figures and come to actual facts. Heaven knows the figures are large enough. But the resolution does not call for the one hundred million dollars which the hon. gentleman refers to, although it does call for a very large sum. It calls for an amount not exceeding $71,000,000 odd, being one-sixth of the total,-to be exact, $71,499,703.70.
Now, the charge is made with some heat by the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Lem-ieux), that we are not following British practice or tradition. Well, this is the only thing they do in the British Parliament every year. It is always done, and it is the only way they can get along. I do not ask my hon. friend to take my word for it; I read to him just a few moments ago the authority on the subject, showing just exactly what is done in the British House. But because we are following the example of the Mother of Parliaments, we are charged both by the hon. member and by the leader of the Opposition, with being un-British in our methods. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), says that we should call Parliament sooner. Well, when he called Parliament sooner, he adopted exactly the same practice as is now being followed. He had charge of the country's finances in the year 1906-7. Parliament was called on November 22, 1906, and in that session there were two interim Supply Bills passed, although the House was called in November.


Rodolphe Lemieux: There was a surplus that year.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not know whether there was a surplus or not, but I am dealing with one particular complaint that is made,' and I am pointing out that, although it is suggested that if Parliament were called in November there would be no necessity for these things, nevertheless hon. gentlemen opposite did call

Parliament in November and in this particular year to which I have referred they passed not one but two votes in interim Supply. Again, in 1909-10, Parliament was called in November, and a quarter of the Estimates was passed in interim Supply; and in the next year, 1911, the first interim vote was one-sixth, and then there was a further vote of three-twelfths of the remainder. In fact, this became an absolutely settled practice, and I appeal to hon. gentlemen opposite whether I am not following fairly good precedent when I do what has been done by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's. I have the statements made during the debate in 1903, and although I do not propose to read them in extenso, the answers then given by the hon. gentleman himself completely meet the very objection that is made to-day as to salary. He pointed out, for example-well, perhaps I had better quote his exact words on that point:
All the matters that can be discussed in connection with those votes will, of course, still remain before the House; and we will have to take these up Item by item for the purpose of obtaining the remaining four-fifths of the Estimates. So that the course we now propose does not in any way restrict the fullest and freest discussion. It simply facilitates the granting of a partial supply, which will be very much needed before the end of the present month.
The point was raised as to items in connection with which there might be objection and trouble, and at that particular time the views were just exactly opposite to what' they are to-day on the part of some hon. gentlemen. In that instance the right hon. the ex-Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) said:
I would not care to be in this position that because we have voted this one-fifth, in order that some portion of it . might be expended on public works, for example, any gentleman on this side of the House should be precluded from the right of moving to strike out the whole item.
As to this the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's says:
Of course in any particular case after we have acted upon the Supply Bill to the extent of one-fifth, it would be too late to strike out the item in that case. But I hope no such case will arise. At all events, I quite agree with the hon. gentleman's wish to have full freedom of discussion and of action in the matter, and that he merely facilitates the passing of this resolution because it is necessary to make supply for the public service. I quite appreciate that and in that spirit only is the matter agreed to.
As I say, it came up every year and on two occasions I find the hon. gentleman referred to the whole thing as purely pro forma-it was a matter of so long stand-
Sir Henry Drayton.]
ing, in fact, such regular standing. I am sure the hon. gentleman will appreciate the fact that there are other things which have to be paid for besides wages. Coal has to be paid for, supplies have to be paid for, and work that is going on has to go on. He refused before to take anything but his regular vote which would enable him to do these things; I am very much afraid that at the present time we will have to refuse to take anything except what will enable us to do business and continue to pay bills. Now, Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that this motion be postponed and taken up in committee again to-morrow.


Joseph Archambault: Amen.


Georges Henri Boivin: Sir Henry Drayton moves that further consideration of the resolution be postponed.


Lucien Cannon: How can a motion be postponed when .it has been ruled out of order?


Georges Henri Boivin: The debate on the motion is postponed. If it is the desire that the motion be withdrawn and presented again this procedure may be adopted.


Arthur Meighen: The motion may as well be withdrawn. The only thing I have in mind is this: While I do not question the correctness of the ruling by you, Mr. Chairman, having regard to its exact wording, I do say that very embarrassing situations in the future will arise therefrom. It is evidently something that was not taken care of in the framing of the rules, as is very frequently the case. It undoubtedly will mean, as you, Mr. Chairman, were about to intimate, that the consideration of a vote of even one-fourth of the total Estimates as interim Supply, will virtually wipe out the whole effect of the rule and we could then go into Supply on Thursday and Friday and consider the Estimates of any department without any previous notice. Because of that fact I warned hon. gentlemen of the risk they were taking in raising this question and having it ruled accordingly. I think hon. gentlemen will agree with me that it was never intended that the rule should have this effect; it was only intended to enable a vote against a department to be introduced at the opening of the Supply of that department. This could not be done on Thursday or Friday, because there is no motion to go into Supply except on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That is the reason why this ruling affects the whole


situation. I do not ask for any decision now, I would like to give some thought to the subject, and I think that possibly we can come to an agreement, perhaps to reverse the ruling, or at least in some way to establish a precedent which will not have the effect and the consequences that the ruling is going to have. However we can consider the matter to-morrow.


William Stevens Fielding: I would point out to
my hon. friend the fact that when there is a motion made for Supply there is not associated with it any rule in reference to any department, and the rule in that respect, may I say is defective.


Arthur Meighen: I know that, but the
point was raised in the discussion, and the point was taken care of by this means when the closure rules were discussed. I know there is no special department mentioned. According to the practice any member of the Opposition is in a position to move an amendment against a department, or reflecting on it in an way at all.


Lucien Cannon: What is the decision?


Georges Henri Boivin: The motion is withdrawn.
Department of Marine-Shipbuilding programme-amount required for the construction of vessels in accordance with Government programme, $8,330,000.


Hon. Mr. BALLANTYNE:: Before the
members of the committee enter upon the consideration of this item I may perhaps be allowed to say a word or two in reply to certain observations that were made by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) when I presented to the House a week ago last Tuesday, the annual statement as to the earnings of the Government merchant marine. I am sure the hon. member for Red Deer will find no fault with me if I correct a statement he made as to the amount of the contracts that had been let-as he put it, up to Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. If there is one hon. member in this House for whom I have the highest regard it is the hon. member for Red Deer. I admire his parliamentary style and his eloquence, and above all I admire his consistency. While the hon. member and myself do not agree on public questions, I want to pay him this tribute [DOT]-that ever since I have been a member of Parliament he has been thoroughly consistent on all public questions that have come before us. The hon. member for Red Deer opposed the Government shipbuilding programme which I had the honour to submit on April 4, 1918. He said frankly and freely that he did not believe it was a wise expenditure, or that the policy contemplated was wise. In taking that stand the hon. member was consistent and I want to assure him that I appreciate his consistency. However, I want to correct the hon. gentleman in regard to a certain point. He said that the value of the contracts, as let on November 11, 1918, was $16,000,000, and in the hon. gentleman's opinion the Government should have called a halt at that time. I wish to inform the hon. member for Red Deer that the value of the contracts let on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, was not $16,000,000, but $45,000,000. That is the only correction I desire to make in the hon. gentleman's statement.


Mr. CLARK (Red Deer) :: Does my hon. friend recall the speech he made somewhere about December 5, of that year on the occasion of the launching of the first two ships?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Yes.


Michael Clark: Did he not mention in that speech the figure of $16,000,000?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The hon. member is quite right. The $16,000,000 represented the value of the contracts that had been actually signed by Order in Council at that date, but the Government had closed up $45,000,000, although formal Orders in Council had not been passed; therefore I can see quite plainly how the hon. member got the figure of $16,000,000 instead of $45,000,000.


Mr. SINCLAIR (Guysborough) :: The
minister refers to Orders in Council, but I would like to know if on November 11, 1918, contracts had not been let for $45,000,000.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Here are the actual figures: Value of contracts signed on or before November 11, 1918, $29,299,991.40; value of contracts approved by Order in Council on or before November 11, 1918, but not signed, $16,359,703. The commitments therefore on November 11, 1918 amounted to $45,659,694.40.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I turn from my hon. friend from Red Deer to my good friend-who represents the constituencies of Maisonneuve and Gaspe (Mr. Lemieux). I will not reply to him with the same warmth which he displayed towards me, nor will I make the same unfair insinuations. The hon. member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe,

after I had concluded making my statement the other day, with his usual eloquence and with a great deal of heat, informed this House that he was in favour of the Government shipbuilding programme for war purposes only, and that when Armistice day came the Government should have cancelled all the remaining contracts. Indeed, he could not understand how the Government went on spending so many more millions on shipbuilding. He paid the Minister of Marine another compliment on that occasion. He said he could only explain the continued expenditure by assuming that it was due to the pigheadedness of the Minister of Marine. While I admire the eloquence and the many abilities that my hon. friend is endowed with, I cannot pay him the tribute that I paid the hon. member for Red Deer a moment ago and say that he is always consistent on the various problems that from time to time come before this House. Apparently the memory of my hon. friend from Maisonneuve and Gaspe is not very good. A moment ago we heard him say how much he was impressed with the debt of this country, and that his ability and influence would be exercised in this House to have the Estimates reduced by $50,000,000. But in May, 1919, when the vote was before this committee for $30,000,000 to continue the Government shipbuilding programme, if the hon. member's view then was the same as it is now, this House would have expected him to take advantage of that most favourable opportunity to rise in his place and say: I am opposed to the Government shipbuilding policy; I favoured it, of course, while the war was on, but now I want the Government to call a halt to the wild extravagance of the Minister of Marine. Let me remind the hon. member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe that the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, and I brought before the House an interim vote of $30,000,000 in May, 1919.


Rodolphe Lemieux: When was peace signed?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Does not my hon. friend know when peace was signed just as well as I do? If the hon. member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe meant what he said the other day on the floor of this House, that he was absolutely opposed to one cent of the public money being expended on shipbuilding after Armistice day, then his duty was plain in May, 1919, when the $30,000,000 vote was in committee-one would have expected him to oppose the vote. With the enormous debt at that time

staring the House and the country in the face, that was a grand opportunity for the hon. member to have said: I want $30,000,000 of the public money saved.
Now, Mr. Chairman, let us see what the hon. member said on that occasion: A few moments ago he stated that I had lost my business reputation in the commercial metropolis of Montreal. The mere say-so of my hon. friend is by no means conclusive. The business reputation that I have established in Montreal during a period of thirty-five years cannot be marred in the slightest degree by anything that my hon. friend may see fit to say in the heat of debate.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The president of the Bank of Montreal said it, though.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Did he? I will not read the eulogistic remarks concerning myself uttered by the hon. gentleman in May, 1919, because they would make me blush.


Mr. LALOR:: Read them.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: No.


Mr. DUFF:: Give them to me, I will read them.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: But here is what I want to put before the committee, the actual words of the hon. member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe as they appear on page 2312 of Hansard of May 8, 1919, long after Armistice Day,-a golden opportunity, I repeat for my hon. friend to have saved this country $30,000,000,-and no doubt the committee will be interested to know what he said on that occasion. Here are his words:
I do not offer any criticism of the contract between the Naval Department and the Dominion Steel Company which was mentioned this afternoon. I have not seen that contract, and I have the word of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, that it may he altered or even dropped. X do not purpose to let politics interfere with my views on the questions of trade and transportation, for I am a Canadian, first, last and always, and I sincerely approve of the policy of any Government which will promote our shipbuilding and improve our transportation facilities.
That was on May 8, 1919.
I happen to reside in Montreal during several months of the year, where I represent one of the constituencies most interested in shipbuilding. The county of Maisonneuve has within its boundaries the establishment of Canadian Vickers Limited, and I think it is to the credit of the Laurier administration that we have that great shipbuilding plant. Canadian Vickers Limited employ thousands of men, and they have been able to build up an industry which some years ago was considered as only a dream and impossible of realization.

Then the hon. member goes on to talk about navy matters, I will pass over that part.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Perhaps you had better read it all.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Certainly, if the hon. gentleman wishes me to. I quote further:
I cannot forget that in 1912 when the question of a Canadian navy was being debated in this House doubts were expressed as regards the practicability of that policy. The Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) himself stated, in a now. famous speech, that not in twenty-five, or even fifty years perhaps, could we expect to build a Canadian navy. And we had the candid advice of Mr. Churchill, who told us-with some ingenuousness I should say-that we could not find reveters in Canada, and there were so many swamps that we could hardly lay keels for the proposed Canadian navy. Sir, let us not refer to that debate, because really it is enough to make us lose confidence in some of the statesmen of the Mother Country. We have passed the period when the British Government could at their own sweet will thus impose their views on credulous colonials. We have had the satisfaction since that time of establishing shipyards on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, on the river St. Lawrence, and on the Upper Lakes, and the British Commissioners who were appointed some years ago to study the trade conditions of the British Empire, reported that Canada was fully equipped for shipbuilding and had nothing to fear from competitors. I have under my hand the report of those commissioners, published in February, 1917, from which I read the following :
"Before leaving the subject of the overseas communications of Canada we may allude very briefly to the capacity which the Dominion has for shipbuilding. We visited yards for ship construction and ship repairing both on the Pacific coast and at Montreal and we were struck with the activity generally prevailing at all places. There is also considerable shipbuilding work on the Upper Lakes."
I do not know what the commissioners would say if they came back to Canada to-day. Had they come last year they would have seen how our shipyards kept the wheels of industry running at full speed during a very crucial period. But Canada must not be satisfied with her war industries only. During the war Canada established her ability to do things ; she must go on now and adapt herself to peace conditions, profiting by the development which has taken place during the war.
I stand for a moderate and wise policy of shipbuilding for Canada-


Rodolphe Lemieux: Hear, hear.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The hon. member will not think I am unfair to him when I say I had always known, until recently, that he entertained the same views with regard to shipbuilding in Canada that I did. The hon. gentleman went on to say:
-and if the Acting Prime Minister, under section 2 of the Bill, intends to apply some of that money for the promotion of shipbuilding
and the improvement and development of our Canadian transportation facilities, I shall vote for the amount which i3 being asked this evening.
Nothing, in my judgment, has proved more adequately the ability of the Canadian people to do things than the enormous development which has taken place in our shipyards during the last three or four years. It is urged that the Minister of Naval Affairs (Mr. Ballantyne) took away from the Imperial Munitions Board a business which that board was carrying on at our Canadian yards. It seems to me that the answer given by the. hon. gentleman is a common-sense one. During the war Canada gave to the Mother Country the exclusive use of her shipyards, in which ships were built of British registry. Our ships were also commandeered. Of course, it was for the common cause. But the moment war ceased, the moment we come to peace activities, it is only common sense that Canada should take control of these shipyards-
That is, after the war.
-and build her own ships with her own men and her own money, with a view of improving her shipping and transportation facilities1.


Rodolphe Lemieux: If my hon. friend will
allow me, what does he find in that speech?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I find in that
speech, in the plainest language, that the hon. member for Maisonneuve and Gaspe did not on May 8, 1919, by his voice or by his vote dissent from an appropriation for an additional $30,000,000 to continue the ship-building policy of the Government, though my hon. friend said a few days ago in this House that he favoured ship-building only during the war, and censured me as Minister of Marine, and the Government of Canada, for spending any money on the construction of ships after the Armistice day, November 11, 1918. If the hon. member entertained at that time the views which he apparently entertains now, his only course on that occasion was to make the speech that he made on the floor of this House a few days ago; to say: the war is over; my support of the Government's policy is withdrawn; I am opposed to the appropriation of this additional $30,000,000 for the continuance of the ship-building policy of the Government. I read in that speech not what the hon. member said the other day, but warm and full endorsation of the expenditure of $30,000,000 on shipbuilding. More than that, by his voice and vote on that occasion he supported to the full a continuance of the Government's ship-building policy. I am at a loss, therefore, as all other hon. members in this House must be, to understand the inconsistency of my hon. friend. I know that he has been a long time in public life. I am aware that he has spent his summers

down on the beautiful shores of the river St. Lawrence at Murray Bay, and as he went out in canoes and boats a great deal he has a more thorough knowledge than I have of how to trim his sails according to the breeze. My hon. friend, therefore, trims his sails according to the breeze that is now blowing in this Biouse and condemns the Minister of Marine and the Government for proceeding with their ship-building policy after November 11, 1918, although six months subsequent to that date he gave the Government his entire support for the expenditure of $30,000,000. He told us on that occasion-and I concurred in what he said in that regard-of the existence of a large shipyard in the constituency of Maisonneuve employing some 3,500 men.


Rodolphe Lemieux: In order that there
may be no misunderstanding, I may say that I would repeat at this very hour the very words that the minister has just read


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Well, I leave it to the judgment of the House and of the people as to what meaning can be taken from the speech that my hon. friend delivered on May 8, 1919.
The senior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) speaking the other day with regard to the railways, expressed opposition to the running of Government ships between Halifax and Newfoundland and stated that the ships on that route were losing money. With that statement I disagreed and I asked him how he knew that to be the case, whereupon the hon. member said that the source of his information was, in his opinion, as reliable as the operating company. I took the trouble to have my secretary telephone to the manager of the Canadian Government merchant marine and ask him whether or not the Government ships on this route were making a profit, and the reply was that they were. Another reason why the management want those ships to run from Halifax to Newfoundland in winter time is to keep up the connection between the routes operated by the ships which run between Montreal, Charlottetown and Newfoundland during the season of open navigation on the St. Lawrence.
Now, Mr. Chairman, that is all I wish to say at this stage. If there is any information that hon. members desire I shall be happy to give it to the best of my ability.


William Duff: Mr. Chairman, we have all listened with a great deal of attention to the second speech which the hon. Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballantyne) has felt it necessary to make with regard to the Cana-

dian Government merchant marine. Evidently he was not satisfied with the statement which he made to the House when the House re-assembled on Tuesday last after the Easter recess. There has been a good deal of talk about extending to hon. members of this House certain courtesies in regard to public matters. Whilst I do not complain because we on this side were not notified on Tuesday last until practically within an hour of the meeting of the House, that the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Ballantyne) was going to take up this important question, we on this side are more courteous than he is. Last evening, after the debate on the motion of the hon. member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe) I had intended to go into the question of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, before the House went into Supply, but I found that the Minister of Marine and Fisheries was absent, and consequently I deferred my remarks to a later date. I also, Sir, did not know to-day that this very important question was coming up. But I am glad to say that I think, in my feeble manner, I am able to deal with this question at the present time and show whether the minister's statements are correct or not. As regards the minister's statement of a few minutes ago, that the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lem-ieux), in his remarks this afternoon with regard to the Canadian Government Merchant Marine in any way reflected on the business ability of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, I have always found, in my short life, that "birds come home to roost," and it would be well, before the minister says anything about the business or political career of the hon. member for Maisonneuve, that he reflect carefully on what he might have said himself; and it would be better for the minister, instead of going in public places and making remarks about hon. members of this House, that he make those remarks on the floor of Parliament and in the presence of the said members, and say what he has to say like a man.
I noticed this afternoon, when the hon, member for Maisonneuve was speaking about the large amount of money which the Government had spent on this merchant marine and the reasons for economy, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries laughed very long and loudly. This may be a matter in which the minister may see something to smile at, and if the true story of this merchant marine were known, I think the minister could very well laugh; but the people of this country are not in that position;

they recognize that the building and operating of this merchant marine are serious matters, and consequently, I can assure the minister that they are in no laughing mood.
The Minister of Marine and Fisheries, in his speech on Tuesday last, went into the history of the building of those Government ships, and in order to bolster up his case he had to call to his assistance some words which were said by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux). It is not my desire, nor my intention to take up the cudgels for those hon. gentlemen; they are ready and able to do so themselves. But at this time, it is a very poor defence for the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to use the words of the hon. member for Red Deer, or the hon. member for Maisonneuve, or any other hon. member, when the war was on or shortly after it was over and before peace was declared.
What is my understanding of the history of this merchant marine? I might say that when the minister asked this House in 1918 for a vote of $20,000,000, I voted for it, or I did not oppose it. I want to say, however, that I never favoured the building of a Government merchant marine. I am in favour of a merchant marine, a Canadian merchant marine; but I am not now, nor was I then in favour of this Government going into either the building or the operating of ships. If I understand the matter correctly, the first intimation the members of the House and the people throughout the country received with regard to the programme of the Government was sometime in the spring of 1918. At that time the minister, after no doubt awarding contracts by Order in Council, asked this House to pass a vote of $20,000,000. It seemed to me that before this policy was adopted by the Government, the very least they might have done before giving the contracts was to ask this House to support the policy. This money was voted, because the war was on at that time and because every man in this country, whether he was interested in or knew anything about the shipping business or otherwise, realized that, owing to the fact that the German submarine was operating, not only in the waters of the Atlantic, but in the North Sea, and destroying thousands and hundreds of thousands of tons of British shipping, it was necessary for the Canadian people to do something. Not only did the Government go on with this programme; but private capital all over ths coastline of Canada, both on the Pacific and
the Atlantic, decided to do everything in its power to build ships in order to help out the situation. In practically every town facing the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shipyards sprang up almost over night, and private industry provided private capital and built shipyards and ships. In 1919, as the minister said, further money was asked for by the Government and voted by this House. At that time the Canadian people felt that this shipbuilding programme should stop, and had the minister consulted the business men, and the financial men of this country, he would not have gone on with his programme. The right and proper thing for the minister to do on that occasion, after war was over and peace was declared, was to go to the shipbuilders to whom he had given contracts and endeavour to settle with them, giving them damages, and to get them to complete their contracts and go on with the shipbuilding business with their private money, and make contracts in the open market. That is the businesslike way to deal with the matter, and that is what the minister and the Government should have done.
The minister, in his speech the other day, gave as one reason why he entered into this shipbuilding programme and kept it going was to give work to returned soldiers. That is not a very good excuse. It is quite true a few returned soldiers were employed in those yards; but anybody who knows anything about shipbuilding is well aware of the fact that skilled workers are required to build steel ships, and the ordinary man who went over to France and fought heroically for his country, knew nothing about building ships. Consequently, the arguments of the minister that the continuance of his programme was to give work to returned soldiers must fall to the ground.
If the minister or his department had been properly informed, they would have realized, in the year 1919, that it would take only a very short time for the world tonnage to be back to its normal level or beyond it. Every shipping man in this country, in Great Britain and every other country, knew, in 1919, that every shipyard in the world was busy replacing the tonnage that had been sunk during the war. Whilst in 1914 there were 45,000,000 tons of shipping throughout the world, to-day there are 65,000,000 tons. Therefore, the minister and his department were improperly informed, or they would have been aware of this fact, and, consequently, they would have trimmed their sails to suit the occasion.

The minister told us, either in 1919 or 1920, I forget which, when he was criticised for going on with this programme of building ships when there was no necessity, that he could sell them at a good profit. I am sure if we could get down to the inner consciousness of the minister he would certainly admit that he made a very grave mistake in not selling the Government ships in 1919 or 1920 if he could have sold them then at a profit or even at cost. That would have been the business-like thing to do, and I say that the minister was derelict in his duty in not disposing of these ships at that time, when he could have sold them at a profit or at cost. That is the course any good business man would have taken. The minister after the armistice should have endeavoured to get out of the contracts, and make the very best settlement he could of a bad bargain.
In order to prove my case, perhaps I may be allowed to show that another department of this Government did the very thing which I have just stated should have been done by the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. If hon. gentlemen will turn to page 22 of the twenty-eight annual report of the Department of Trade and Commerce, they will find this:
Negotiations were then entered into between this Department and the two furnaces, with the result that after many conferences and meetings, the Government offered and the contractors accepted the sum of $460,000 in the case of the Midland Iron & Steel Company and $200,000 in the case of the Parry Sound Iron Company for the cancellation of their production on July 31, 1919, agreeing however to take care of all loading and storage charges until August 31, 1920.
Now if the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the officials of his department thought that in view of world conditions in 1919, it was good business to cancel certain contracts they had made during the war for war purposes, I think the members of this House and the people of this country will agree with me that the Minister of Marine and Fisheries should have done the very same thing and cancelled the various contracts which he had made. Another reason which the minister gave in his speech was that it was necessary or good business to build these slow tramp steamers in order to get the products of our fields and mines and fisheries from Canadian shores to Great Britain and foreign countries. I do not think there is anything in that argument. Hon. members have no doubt received through the mails a copy of the statement of the Canadian Pacific Railway. If they will look at that statement,

they will see the number of steamers employed by that company, and if they will look at the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce they will see what a small proportion of the goods routed over the Canadian Pacific either to Montreal, Halifax, or any other port in Canada, are carried by Canadian Pacific Railway steamers. If they look at the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce they will also see what a small quantity of freight is handled by these slow tramp steamers for which this country has had to pay such a high price.
We have also been told about what these Government ships have been doing for our export business; but what do we find? All the ships have been doing practically is interfering with other companies already in existence. We were told that these ships on the Pacific Coast were carrying lumber, which any old wind-jammer could have carried. That is the kind of business they are doing, and consequently the argument the minister puts forward that these ships were necessary to transport to their destination cargoes carried over the railroads is not a sound one, as every man who studies the subject will agree.
If hon. members will turn to page 5 of the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce for 1920, they will find that last year our exports amounted to $1,239,492,098, and we remember that the minister in his speech a few days ago told us in sonorous tones that the ships of the Government merchant marine carried last year $50,000,000 worth of these goods. I need not stress that point, but the figures show conclusively that the ships of the Merchant Marine are carrying only a small proportion of the trade of this country, and in doing so, I say they are interfering with other lines which could carry the goods far better than the slow tramp steamers which the Government has built.
The minister also told us, if I am not mistaken, that another reason why these ships were built was to expand our foreign trade. Now the ordinary person would think that it was wise for Canada to have ships to help expand her foreign trade, but are these Government ships expanding the foreign trade of this country? I say they are not. I say they have not expanded our foreign trade to the extent of $1,000,000 more than other lines were doing before these ships ever took the water. Let me tell the committee what these Government ships are doing. I doubt if the minister knows, but I am going to try and

enlighten him, because I think somebody should put the matter up square to him. Here is an item I found in a good Tory paper, the Halifax Herald, and I would ask the minister to listen very attentively to this:
The steamer Canadian Pioneer-
I presume that is one of the Government's boats.
-left here (Halifax, N.S.) Saturday for Newport News, to take on bunker coal there, and then proceed to Gibraltar to load grain for Italian ports.
Did you ever hear anything like that before, Mr. Chairman? I will repeat the quotation, so that the House will be fully seized of the situation:
The steamer Canadian Pioneer left here (Halifax, N.S.) Saturday for Newport News, to take on bunker coal there, and then proceed to Gibralter to load grain for Italian ports.


John Howard Sinclair: Newport News? Where is that?


William Duff: In the United States where hon. gentlemen opposite did not desire any truck or trade. But they sent their steamers there, light from Halifax, when the coal mines of Nova Scotia were crying for orders, and although the bunker coal from North Sydney or Sydney Mines or any other part of Nova Scotia is just as good as any that Newport News can offer. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries is responsible for daring, I say, to send that steamer from Halifax, without bunker coal, to Newport News, without one dollar's worth of cargo in her hold, to bunker there.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I would like to
inquire whether the hon. gentleman believes everything he reads even in a Tory paper.


Rodolphe Lemieux: That is a bad one for the Tories.


William Duff: I would just as readily believe this statement in the Halifax Herald as some statements which have been made by certain persons in this country. Before I get through, I am going to prove that this statement is just as correct as certain statements made within the last fortnight. This item in the Halifax Herald goes on to state that after taking on bunker coal at Newport News this steamer is going to come back, in order to get to Gibraltar to load wheat for an Italian port, passing within fifty miles of Halifax or Louisburg. That is the kind of foreign trade the minister is developing. I can give a hundred other instances to show that these ships do not carry Canadian cargo, but go to all parts of the world developing trade for the benefit of foreign countries. The minister, last week apologetically endeavoured to show cause for the condition in which the Canadian Government Merchant Marine appears, and he told the House that the Government programme was over and that no more contracts would be let-in other words, the Canadian Government did not intend to build any more ships. The minister claims that the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) is inconsistent, but it seems to me that this charge can very properly be laid at his own door. Because if these ships, as he says, are developing foreign trade, why should we stop building them? If his argument is sound, that sixty-three ships built under contracts let have developed export trade to the advantage of this country, we should go on building, and instead of having sixty-three, we should have a thousand. But it is quite certain that the minister's contention is wrong and that these ships, far from developing Canadian trade, are going hither and thither developing trade for foreign countries.
I would refer for a few moments to some of the contracts entered into by the Government with certain shipyards in this country. My own idea is that there is an Ethiopian in the woodpile somewhere in connection with some of these contracts, and although I have not been able, so far, to locate him, I am on the look-out and some day I hope to land him. Now, although the war has been over two years; and notwithstanding the fact, in view of the general state of business to-day, that other people have been endeavouring to cancel contracts and stop building ships, the minister has virtually allowed the keel of a new ship to be laid in Halifax in the last few months. And thereby hangs a tale. The Halifax Shipyards Company I have not a word to say against. My whole complaint is against the Minister of Marine; I consider that the Halifax shipyards people are good business men, and they certainly put one over on the minister. What has the Government done within the last two years? A contract was entered into with the Halifax shipyards to build three ships, if I mistake not. Now, the Halifax shipyards was a new concern. In the latter part of 1917, or early in 1918, there was no such concern as the Halifax shipyards, and when they incorporated they did not buy out an old shipyard; they built an entirely new one. Practically before a



blow was struck, the explosion occurred in Halifax, and you will remember what occurred then. Almost the entire city was wrecked, some 2,000 persons, in round numbers lost their lives, while about 20,000 suffered in one way and another as a result of the disaster. I will not discuss the subject now, but I may remark, in passing, that most of the business places in Halifax, and the buildings and wharves suffered. There was in Halifax what is known as the Graving Dock Company, owned principally by English capitalists but managed by a gentleman in that city. This dock
5 p.m. was built some twenty years ago and has given excellent satisfaction to the shipping not only of this country but of Great Britain and the United States. Practically all the year round vessels come to Halifax for repairs. During the explosion this dock was partly wrecked. After people had fairly well recovered from the shock, the manager of the dock suggested that the Government should take it over, and he offered it to them, if I am correctly informed, for $1,250,000. Negotiations were entered into, but the Government refused to pay this price. A few days afterwards, however, an Order in Council was passed confiscating the property for the sum of $1,100,000. The owners of the dock protested and took the matter to the Exchequer Court where it hung fire for something like two years. Now, the people of this country will agree that it might have been good business for the Government to take over this dock for their own purposes; and, at all events, had they done so probably little fault would have been found with them. But what happened? Almost immediately after they passed the Order in Council confiscating this dock, the personal property of the owners, they turned it over to the Halifax shipyards. I say that there is absolutely no excuse for that. It was not necessary for the business of the Halifax shipyards.	Shipyards in other
parts of the country built ships without owning any dry dock, but the thing was done for some reason; there are certain interests in this country who are pretty close to the Government and are also close to the men interested in the Halifax Shipyards.
Mr. BALLANTYNE-:	As the hon.
gentleman seems to be shooting somewhat wide of the mark, let me tell him now that all dry docks in Canada come under the Public Works Department. The Hon. F. B. Carvell was Minister of Public Works at the time. He was the man who carried through

all these negotiations, and neither myself nor any one else connected with the Marine Department had anything whatsoever to do with this matter.


William Duff: I am delighted indeed to hear the minister say that this is a matter with which the Public Works Department, and not his department, had to do. But I knew that; there was no necessity for the minister to make that statement. Now it is also true that the Hon. F. B. Carvell carried on "negotiations". I would not call it "negotiations" to seize a man by the throat and take his property. However, I do not know that I should hold Hon. Mr. Carvell any more guilty than I do the Minister of Marine. As I have already said, I only wish I could get ahold of the Ethiopian in the woodpile.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Why don't you
get him?


William Duff: I am looking for him every
day. I say there was some reason why the Minister of Marine sat round the Council Board when the Order in Council was passed expropriating the Halifax Dry Dock and handing it over to private interests, and it is of no avail for that hon. gentleman to come here and try and excuse himself and argue that the Public Works Department or Mr. Carvell is responsible. I say such a thing as that is not fair to the late Minister of Public Works; the Minister of Marine must take his own share of the responsibility.	'


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Certainly.


William Duff: Why don't you do it then?
To show you what feeling this expropriation and the subsequent proceedings created in the Old Country where the people lived who had their money invested in this dry dock at Halifax, I shall quote from a report of a meeting of the Halifax Graving Dock Company, Limited, held in London, and which is headed-
The Halifax Graving Dock Company, Limited
Dominion Government and the Company Expropriation of the Property
Criticism of Award
I need not read very much, I am only going to read one short sentence. It is from the annual report of the shareholders of that concern which was adopted unanimously. The sentence in question is:

It is not too much to say that such action constituted an abuse of the War Measures Act and is a piece of sharp practice on the part of the Dominion Government.
I fully agree with what the shareholders of the Halifax Graving Dock Company said at their meeting in London when they asserted that this proceeding was a piece of sharp practice. It certainly was sharp practice on the part of the former Prime Minister and his colleagues to take this graving dock from a private company and hand it over to another private company within a few days. If the Government had kept this dock themselves and used it for war purposes there would have been no criticism, or at any rate very little. I say the Government had no right to take this property from a private company and hand it over to the Halifax Ship Yards Limited.


An hon. MEMBER:: Carried:


William Duff: I regret that hon. gentlemen opposite show they are not interested in this matter. I know by their actions that they do not care anything about the discussion of a serious question like this. If they are not interested I hope they will abstain from noisy interruptions or else leave the chamber. It is a foolish policy for hon. gentlemen opposite to cry "Carried" when another member is addressing the House on such a serious matter.
Now, Sir, before I leave the matter of the Halifax Dry Dock, and my criticisms do not seem to be accepted very gracefully by hon. gentlemen opposite, I wish to again refer to the same " Ethiopian." There has been created what is known as the British Empire Steel Corporation which is putting the value of the Halifax Dry Dock at $7,250,000 whereas they paid the poor English shareholders who formerly owned the property, only $1,500,000, including interest and all. That is the way these things are done and therefore I say there is some reason why some people closely connected with the Halifax Shipyards and the Government of this country-


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Don't throw veiled insinuations across the House. Be frank and fair, and if you think I have been connected with the Dominion Steel Company, or the Dry Dock, in any way, be good enough to say so and produce your evidence. Surely my hon. friend knows enough of etiquette, and understands the sentiment of the House sufficiently well, to refrain from continually casting veiled threats across the floor. I repeat, if the hon. member has any evidence that I have ' 1071
been, directly or indirectly, connected with the Dry Dock Company or with the British Empire Steel Corporation, or any other members of the Government either, let him say so.


William Duff: If the cap fits anybody they can wear it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.
Mr, BALLANTYNE: That is not the question.


William Duff: It is rather amusing to hear hon. gentlemen applauding. Let these hon. gentlemen go ahead and clap; it is all they can do. But it certainly is amusing to see the Minister of Marine getting up every second or third day in the House and complaining, when an hon. member says anything, that they are referring to him. He may, of course, think that he is the whole Government but we on this side do not. We know exactly what he thinks about himself and the great ego which he has developed during the last three years. Well, I can assure him that there are other people in this country and in this Government-bad as it is, and God knows it is bad enough

besides the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries. Consequently I cannot see why he should take the matter directly to himself when I make any reference to the Government. However, if he wants to do so it is not my fault.
The minister last week presented to Parliament what purported to be a statement showing the operating expenses of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine for the year 1920. Now, Sir, in order to give the House and the country the full details of the mismanagement of this business, and to show them exactly what has happened, it is necessary for me not only to discuss the minister's statement of last week but to draw attention to what the minister said last year when this matter was discussed in the House. He then told us that he was going to put on Hansard the proper statement of the operations of the Canadian Mercantile Marine for the year 1919. I regret to say that no such statement appears in Hansard. The statement in question, beyond a very few items, was such as no business house or no person with any knowledge of business would issue. Just before the session ended, however, and when it was so late that there was no chance to discuss the affairs of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, a little book which is called the "First Annual Report of the Government Merchant

Marine Limited" came into my hands. Within the covers of that booklet are two statements and two statements only, and in order to give the full financial story of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine and its operations, it is necessary for me to put this statement on Hansard:
Canadian Government Merchant Marine Limited Operating Department Balance Sheet as at December 31, 1919.
Assets
Current Assets:
Cash in banks and on hand	$432,476.39
Dominion of Canada Victory Loan,
1919	 500,000.00
Accounts receivable	 502,155.18
Advances to captains, crews and
agents	 23,270.88
Insurance claims, estimated amount
recoverable	 24,893.35
Interest receivable accrued	$	4,583 33Inventories of stores and	supplies..	1,959 71

Insurance unexpired	 505,284 27
Fixed Assets:
Office furniture.. .. $7,611 10
Automobile	 890 93

 8,502 03

Liabilities.
Accounts payable	$ 530,632 84
Balances of Uncompleted voyages. 415,724 92
Surplus-Profit for period from
March 2 to December 31, 1919. 1,056,767 38 Contingent Liabilities-none ascertained	 -

I want first to call attention to the fact that in that balance sheet no item appears for interest paid to the Department of Finance on the cost of these ships. According: to the total given by the minister, the cost of the vessels will figure at about
$25,000,000, and the interest would be about $1,021,680. But in this balance sheet no such item appears as having been paid, although the minister distinctly told us in the statement which he presented to this House that he had paid to the Department of Finance, if my memory serves me right, a sum of $500,000 for interest on these vessels. If my figuring is correct, instead of $500,000, about $1,000,000 should have been paid. When the minister read certain figures last year to the House he told us, after I had asked him about depreciation- he would not tell me at the time, but he brought down the information in the evening-that he had put to rest for depreciation 5 per cent of the cost of the vessels which were then in operation. Of course, I accepted his statement that that had been done. It seems to me, with my limited experience of finance, that if any amount was put to rest for depreciation-$1,238,-400-it would appear in the statement of assets and liabilities. Therefore I should like the minister some time within the very near future to tell me and this House and the country where that depreciation is to be found. That is one reason why we want the information in regard to the Government railways and ships. I want to see the bank book, I want to see where this depreciation is put to rest, and I want the officials who made up this statement to come before a committee of this House and show where they have placed $1,238,400 for depreciation. I say again that on the face of this statement no such amount has been set aside. Now, Sir, there is in this pamphlet an operating account which I desire to also place on Hansard for the purpose of reference not only by hon. members but by the people. This is the account:
Operating Account
For the Period from March 2, 1919, to December 31, 1919
Closed Voyages-
Revenue from, vessels

Other revenue-
Commission and Agency Fee on landing of Ss. Juil	$ 869 66
Interest		8,715 23

 9.584 89
Total revenue	 ,	.		,	$2,779,633 98
Expenses

Operation of vessels Operation nt wnarf [Mir. Duff.]

Operating Account-Concluded
For the Period from March 2, 1919, to December 31, 1919-Concluded
General expenses-
Office salaries	
Printing and stationery	
Advertising	
Cables, telegrams and telephones
Miscellaneous	
Loss on Exchange	

 64,391 23

Operating Profit closed voyages	 $1,056,767 38
Open voyages-
Balance open voyages accounts	 $415,724 92
Complete statement of disbursements, and operating expenses on account of these voyages has not been received, but it is estimated the result will show a net profit of approximately	 $ 350,000 00
Total profit for Period	
It will be seen that an amount, which is not stated, is deducted for disbursements and operating expenses on account of these voyages, and ko on, and the balance is said to represent an estimated profit on the open voyages of $350,000, making a total profit for the period from March 2 to December 31, 1919 of $1,406,7.67.38.
This statement, which I assume has the approval of my genial friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, shows, although there is no provision made either for interest of $1,000,000 or for depreciation of $1,238,400, that there is a net profit of $1,406,767.38, including open voyages. Evidently, Sir, I am justified in using the larger figures, because these great experts who are managing these steamers should have known before figuring on a profit of $350,000 on open voyages that the profit was in sight and would stay in sight.
I would now like to refer for a moment to Hansard of 1920. The reason I refer to this more particularly is that the Minister of Marine a few moments ago in his heat accused the member for Maisonneuve of not being consistent, and of saying things that he should not have said. He is not the only man in this House who is inconsistent.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I am not inconsistent.


William Duff: Of course you are not. I am saying what the Minister of Marine said you are.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I know that.


William Duff: Where the assets appear on the balance sheet we find, as I read a few minutes ago, cash in banks and on hand, $432,476.39, and Dominion of Canada Victory Loan 1919, $500,000-counted, I
	 $1,406,767 38
presume, as cash, but not the actual value as stated here. I asked the minister for the amount of profit set aside to rest account for depreciation. This is his answer at page 623 of the Hansard of 1920:
Mr, BALLANTYNE:
I am sorry I cannot give that information at the moment.
That was in regard to rest and depreciation.
I have given the gross earnings and the net earnings, and explained how these sums were arrived at, but Just how much has been set aside to rest account I cannot say.
I know that up to to-day the organization has in the bank, in the shape of cash and Victory bonds, the large amount of one and one-half millions, but just what portion of that has been set aside or depreciation I cannot at present state.
Now, Sir, in the statement put on Hansard by the minister he said that he had on hand in banks on account of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine $1,500,000 in cash and Victory bonds, whereas the statement from which I have been reading and which was issued under the signature of D. B. Hanna gives only the sum of $432,000 cash and $500,000 Victory bonds *-a slight difference of $600,000. The minister should be the last person to talk of other hon. members being inconsistent.


Mr. STEVENS:: Would the hon. member give the date of Hansard from which he quoted?


William Duff: I gave it once, but if the
hon. gentleman will listen I will give it again: page 623, March 23, 1920.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I thank the hon. member for his courtesy.


William Duff: I am very glad to have the thanks of the hon. gentleman; I appreciate

them very sincerely. Now, in 1920 the minister, when he was giving to the House a statement of the results of the operation of these steamers and when he gave a certain portion of the two statements I have read, at the conclusion of his remarks prophesied that there would be a greater profit for 1920, and I would like hon. members to bear that in mind as I proceed with my remarks. But I am going to prove that the minister was a false prophet; he was one of the prophets spoken of in Jeremiah who cried "Peace, peace, when there was no peace", for he was crying "Profits, profits", last week when there were no profits. Although the minister shows a profit in his statement, I am going to prove that he did not give the House a correct statement of the affairs of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, and that there was no profit.
In the statement made by the minister on March 29, 1921, which appears at page 1334 of unrevised Hansard, I find the following:
Operating Account for 1920 Gross Revenues closed voyages..	$10,027,442	77Operating expenses	
8,733,917	22Operating Profit Closed	voyages.	$	1,293,525	55
Deduct-
Depreciation	$667,665.46
Outstandin liabilities	 22,000.00
Incorporation expenses	 5,400.00

	$695,065	46
Net earnings closed voyages 598,460 09 Net earnings on voyages closed since January applicable to 1920	 1S3.000 00
Total net earnings.. ..	$781,460 09
If hon. gentlemen will figure it up they will find that the minister allows only 1.56 per cent for depreciation. In the ordinary course of events, as every shipping man in this country knows, 5 per cent is a sufficiently small amount to allow for ordinary depreciation-not the difference between the cost of the ship and what a similar ship might be purchased for, but what is known as ordinary running depreciation or wear and tear. But instead of 5 per cent the minister allows only 1.56 per cent for depreciation.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Two per cent.


William Duff: In a moment I will give
the minister the figures.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Perhaps I can
save the hon. gentleman that trouble. He is no doubt basing his calculations on the capital cost of the ships as shown in that [Mr. Duff. 1
statement, whereas the depreciation i3 figured only according to the time that the ships came into commission.


William Duff: That is fair; I accept that.
We will take the minister's word that it is 2 per cent. Now, Sir, in the same statement there appears an item: "Outstanding liabilities, $22,000". I admit that it is impossible for the minister to know the full details of this organization, but I do offer this criticism: although the outstanding liabilities of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine are given in this statement as $22,000, in the city of Halifax on December 31, 1919, his company owed about $100,000.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I do not like interrupting my hon. friend so frequently-


William Duff: Go ahead; we want to get
all the information we can.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I want the hon. gentleman to finish his speech. But I would like to direct his attention to the fact that the accounts as I presented them a few days ago were audited not only by the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, but also by the well known firm of auditors, Marwick, Mitchell & Company; so I rather think they should be regarded as authentic.


William Duff: I would like the hon. gentleman to bear that in mind, that if we read from his two statements, in the two years he shows on paper a profit of $2,188,227.47. Of course, I might say that that is not a profit at all, and everyone knows that no such profit exists. It will be interesting for hon. members to know what become of this $2,000,-
000.	Before I go on to the minister's statement which is found on page 1334 of unrevised Hansard, March 29, 1921, and which is known as the consolidated balance sheet, I want to give to the House a statement which I mave made out of the actual condition and position of the operating account for the two years:
Operating account, 1920,
Credit: By profit on closed voyages, $598,460.09.
I give only the net profits because I realise, and the officials of the department must realise, that the amount which they put down on paper of $183,000 for net earnings after January for voyages which are not closed, is purely imaginary. There are upon the ocean to-day scarcely any ships making a profit, and the minister's ships certainly cannot make profits with empty holds and running from one port to another without cargoes. Therefore, I am taking the net nearnings on the 1920 operating account of $598,460.09. The debits are as follows:
To interest on cost of ships in commission- $2,724,474.00.
Which is a charge against the operating revenue of the ships for 1920.
To interest on advances for uncompleted ships	$421,699.10
To business profits tax, 1919,	 742,650.00
To income war tax, 1920	 62,580.00
Totaf	$3,951,403.10
Leaving a loss on operating account for 1920 of $3,352,943.01. This is the actual state of affairs. Instead of there being, as the minister says, a credit balance of $2,188,227.47, there is a debit balance of loss in operation for the one year alone of $3,352,943.01. I would like to explain the figures I have given in the debits. As regards the interest of $2,724,474, on cost of ships in commission, I have figured the interest at 5i per cent, on information which the minister gave to the House a week ago last Tuesday. If my memory is correct, the ships cost an average of $192 per ton, and the tonnage of ships in commission is 259,783 tons. I have figured this amount at 51 per cent, which shows that the Canadian Government Merchant Marine owes the Finance Department in 1920 for interest on cost of ships, $2,274,474. It is also a well known fact that the Finance , Department, through the Marine Department, have advanced to shipbuilders throughout this county on account of ships, that are not yet completed but which are in course of construction, certain sums of money known as progress payments. I have figured in this connection that, if we allow only six months' interest, there is due to the Finance Department $421,699.10 on uncompleted ships. That is an amount of over $3,000,000 which these ships owe in interest. I have charged a business profits tax for 1919 of $742,650, and my reason for charging this amount is twofold. One reason is that the business done by these ships is the same as business done by a private corporation. Instead of this business being done, if done at all, by the officials of the Department of Marine, for some reason or another the Government saw fit to put the business into the hands of a private corporation, with the result that, as a private corporation, they have to pay to the Government a business profits tax of $742,650. Of course, they are not going to pay it because they do not have to, and it would not matter very much if they had to pay it, because they would be only taking the money out of one pocket and putting it into the other. But it is quite proper for me, in making up this operating account, to

charge them with a business profits tax which a private company would have to pay. I got this amount from a very reliable source, and I think it is correct. I also figured income war tax for 1920 for the same reason. Therefore, instead of there being a credit balance on the two years' operations of $2,188,227.47, as the minister says, there is a direct loss to the country on operating expenses for one year of $3,352,943.01. Nobody can contradict these statements and I am sorry I have to give these statements to the House; but my figures are practically correct, and this is the showing the Canadian Government Marine made in the two years of its operation. Never before in the history of any shipping concern was there such an opportunity of making money. In the first year that these ships were launched, private ship owners, after allowing for depreciation, interest, taxes and every other expense necessary, and after paying their shareholders 7 per cent or 10 per cent, made millions and millions of dollars. Yet the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, with a great deal of gusto, tells this House that he has made a paltry $1,056,000, which shows only on paper and which was never made by the corporation. The shipping business went wrong or bad only in September, 1920. What were the minister's ships doing from January 1, 1920, to August 31, 1920? Practically every ship was engaged in profitable work up to August 31, 1920, and it was only during the last four months of the year that the Government ships should have made a loss. I say that the Government ships were badly managed and the Government have no right to carry on the work of endeavouring to operate ships built in Halifax and Vancouver, registered in Montreal and managed in Toronto. A beautiful combination surely 1
I want to go a little further to show the credence that can be put in the statements of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. An ordinary business man, or I would think a man who boasts about his business, before presenting a statement to his shareholders, or to his directors, or to the country, would have gone over these statements and seen that they were correct, before placing himself in the position in which he is placed to-day before the people of this country.
But, Sir, he also presented a second statement to the country, which I should like to place on Hansard. On page 1334 of Han-

sard of March 29, 1921, appears the statement of the Assets, as follows:
Canadian Government Merchant Marine Limited and Subsidiary Companies Consolidated Balance Sheet as at December 31, 1920
Assets
Fixed Assets-
Vessels at cost. . $50,005,892.71 Less depreciation
reserve	 815,841.32
.

Plant and equipment at cost..$	27,243.25
Office furniture at cost	 29,128.66
$	56,371.91
Less depreciation
reserve	 2,818.60

 53,553 31
Total

Current Assets- Cash in banks and on hand...$ Accounts receivable	
Advances to captains, crews and agents .... Adjusted losses due by underwriters	
Insurance claims, estimated amount recoverable	
Interest receivable accrued... Inventories of stores and supplies	
Dominion of Canada Victory loan, 1934	
426.S16.02
1,750.161.36
54,605.09
67.860.S2
686,805.51
4,583.33
44,821.84
500,000.00

Now with reference to this delightful statement of Marwick, Mitchell and Company, if hon. members will turn to the same Hansard from which I have just quoted they will find that the total assets have not been added up. Instead of showing the total assets as $52,779,258.67, as any proper statement should show, they say that the fixed assets are $49,243,604.70, and the current assets $3,535,653.97, which gives a total of $52,779,258.67.
Then under the heading of Liabilities we have this:
Liabilities
Capital Stock-
Authorized 10,000 shares of $100 each $1,000,000, issued
4,709 shares of $100 each___$	470,900	00
Votes payable-
Due Dominion Government secured by mortgages on
vessels	 49,535,892	71
Current Liabilities-
Accounts payable	 1,712,803	03

Open Voyages-
Balances of uncompleted
voyages	 963,820 65
Surplus-
Contingent liabilities (none ascertained)	 1,004,233 01

Owing to an error in the printing, I presume, the amount $1,004,233.01 appears opposite "Contingent liabilities (not ascertained)" instead of opposite "surplus." According to the minister's statement the surplus should be $1,004,233.01. On operating expenses the minister showed a profit of $2,188,227.47, whereas according to his own statement which I have just read, there is a profit of only $1,004,233.01 on the two years' operations. The minister certainly brings very peculiar statements to the House and I would recommend that instead of getting up in heat and objecting to statements made by the hon. member for Maisonneuve or any other hon. member he would be more careful himself. I have compiled a statement from the minister's figures which I have just read, and I will place it on Hansard in a moment. I have just shown that the minister according to his own figures shows a profit of $1,004,233.01. Now, I am going to show that according to his own figures there is no such thing as a profit of $1,000,000. Now that is a pretty broad statement to make. If the minister will add up the liabilities- leaving out the surplus-shown on page 1334 of Hansard, and subtract the total from the assets, he will find that according to his own figures, the figures of Marwick, Mitchell and Company, or of Mr. Hanna, or of his own officials, who should have gone over this statement to see that it was correct, instead of a profit of $1,004,233.01, he has only a surplus of $95,842.28. Now what do his officials mean, what does Mr. Hanna mean, what do Messrs. Marwick, Mitchell and Company mean, who pretend to have some reputation in this country as auditors and accountants, by showing a surplus of $1,004,233.01 when there is no such thing? Here is the statement I wish to put on Hansard, compiled from the minister's own figures, and it shows that the surplus for the years 1919 and 1920 is only $95,842.28 instead of $1,004,233.01: Canadian Government Merchant Marine Limited and Subsidiary Companies Consolidated Balance Sheet as at December 31, 1920 Assets
Fixed Assets-
Vessels at cost. .$50,005,892.71
Less depreciation
reserve		815,841.32
Plant and equipment at cost..$	27,243.25
Office furniture at cost	 29,128.66
~$	56,371.91
Less depreciation
reserve	 2,818.60

 53,553 31
Total	 Current Assets-	
Cash in banks and on hand ... $	426,816.02
Accounts receivable 		1,750,161.36
Advances to captains, crews and agents ....	54,605.09
Adjusted losses due by underwriters 		67,860.82
Insurance claims, estimated amount recoverable 		686,805.51
Interest receivable accrued. . .	4,583.33
Inventories of stores and supplies 		44,821.84
Dominion of Canada Victory loan, 1934 		500,000.00

Liabilities
Capital Stock-
Authorized 10,000 shares of $100 each $1,000,000, issued 4,709 shares of	$100 each. .. .$	470,900	00
Notes payable-
Due Dominion Government secured by mortgages on
vessels	 49,535,892	71
Current Liabilities-
Accounts payable	 1,712,803	03
Open Voyages

Balances of uncompleted
voyages	 963,820	65
Surplus-
Contingent liabilities (none ascertained)	 95,842	28

The surplus for the years 1919 and 1920 therefore according to the statement of the Government is $95,842.28 and not $1,004,233.01.
I would point out in passing that the figure $49,190,150.39, under Fixed Assets, as it appears in Hansard is evidently intended for $49,190,051.39, as the total shows, and I have therefore made this correction in the statement above.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am sorry that there is an error in the statement as it appears in the unrevised Hansard. The figures in Hansard are not the figures I handed to the reporter here. Hansard has left out under Current Assets, on page 1334, deferred charges, insurance unexpired, $908,390.73. The total assets should be $53,687,649.40.	[DOT]



$49,190,051 39 COMMONS

William Duff: That total includes the
$908,390.73 for unexpired insurance? .


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Yes. While I am on my feet I also wish to correct another error in Hansard. Under the heading of "Liabilities" the item of $1,004,233.01 should have appeared directly opposite the word "Surplus," instead of opposite the words "Contingent Liabilities (none ascertained) ."


William Duff: I understand that. While I am willing to accept the minister's correction, I am anxious to learn that the ships are losing as little money as possible, and the country should have had this correction immediately. But it only shows again that someone in the minister's department is not doing his duty, and when Hansard came out the next day somebody should have gone over the figures and called them to the minister's attention.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: They did.


William Duff: Why did you not correct them?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I did, right away.


William Duff: When did you correct them?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: My secretary drew my attention to them immediately and a letter was sent to Hansard calling attention to these errors and asking Hansard to be good enough to correct them.


William Duff: The minister should have called the attention of the House, and not of Hansard, to the fact, because we do not receive revised Hansard until the next fall. The minister should certainly want to get a proper statement before the country, and I say that someone has been derelict in his duty in failing to have these figures corrected in the House the next day. As the minister now comes in and shows that there should be added to the assets an item of $908,000 for deferred insurance, I must accept his statement as it appears on page 1334 showing a surplus of $1,004,433.01. But I intend in a few moments to dissect both assets and liabilities, and I will show to the House that the minister, instead of having, on his own figures, a profit on operating account of over $2,000,000, from the two years' business, can only show on paper a profit of $1,000,000, and this, as a matter of fact, is really not a profit.
At Six o'clock the Committee took recess.
, After Recess
The Committee resumed at Eight o'clock.


Mr. McMASTER:: Before the hon. member (Mr. Duff) who has the floor resumes his speech I wish to put a question to him. In his remarks this afternoon he told us that the graving dock at Halifax was expropriated by the Government for the sum of about $1,500,000 including interest. He then told us that the dock was turned over to the Halifax Shipyards, Limited, and that they turned it over to the British Empire Steel Corporation for $7,000,000. I do not recollect his having told us at what price the Government-after having expropriated the dock from the British company for $1,500,000-turned it over to the Halifax Shipyards Limited.


William Duff: I am sorry I omitted to
state that because it is a very important feature. The expropriation of this property has had very serious consequences, not only to the shareholders of the Halifax Graving Dock Company but to the people of the Maritime Provinces who have been using this dock. I may say that the Government, after taking the property from the Halifax Graving Dock Company by force, which they did during the war, made an agreement with the Halifax Shipyards Limited to deliver this dock to them at a rental of $62,500 for the first year, with the understanding that sometime during the year the Halifax Shipyards Limited would pay to the Government $1,250,000 for the whole property. Now since my hon. friend has asked me the question, I wish further to state that up to within a few weeks ago the Government had not collected from the Halifax Shipyards Limited that $1,250,000 although they last year paid to the Halifax Graving Dock Company the amount that was awarded the latter by judgment of the Exchequer Court. Consequently, that is another, reason why the members of this House and the people of Canada should condemn the Government

for not having collected this money from the Halifax Shipyards Limited after the first year had expired.


John Dowsley Reid: If the money has not been paid, then I take it for granted the title of the Halifax Dry Dock is still vested in the Crown, and therefore the Government has not only the security of the dry dock as it was when expropriated, but all the buildings and construction that are on the property.


William Duff: There were no buildings or construction on it. As I remarked this afternoon it is a separate and distinct property from that of the Halifax Shipyards Limited. There was no good reason why the Government, of which the Minister of Railways (Mr. Reid) was a member at the time, should, at the instance and on the advice of somebody in their ranks, have decided to take the Halifax Graving Dock Company by the throat, a company composed of English investors of capital in Canada who came here twenty years ago and, in an endeavour to build up industries in the Dominion, invested their money in the Halifax Graving Dock. I say that at the instance of somebody in the Government the Minister of Railways and his colleagues deliberately passed an Order in Council expropriating the property of this private corporation known as the Halifax Graving Dock Company.


John Dowsley Reid: I suppose the hon.
gentleman is aware that Mr. Brookfield gave a written signed option on this property at $1,250,000 and that afterwards he asked more. The claim went to the Exchequer Court and the court placed its valuation on the property.


William Duff: I am delighted to see the Minister of Railways in his place to-night. I remember that last year when we were discussing matters in connection with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine the Minister of Railways was sent for and he favoured the House with information that he had at that time in his department regarding the merchant marine. I am delighted to have him back here again tonight, but let me tell him he was not present this afternoon unfortunately when I explained the whole situation. I know exactly what occurred. The minister is quite correct when he says that Mr. Brookfield, the Managing Director of the Halifax Graving Dock Company offered the property to the Government for $1,250,000. But does the minister know that this offer was made by Mr. Brookfield within a fortnight after the great explosion which took place in Halifax, when two thousand inhabitants of the city were killed and twenty thousand wounded and injured? The population of Halifax at that time were in an awful state of mind, in fact the Minister of Marine, a short time afterwards when he came back from a visit to that city, said "they were in hysterics." That is the expression which he employed; he said they were quite hysterical. Ia it any wonier they were hysterical w.ien a great part of
the city of Halifax had been practically destroyed? It was then that Mr. Brookfield went to Mr. Carvell, or some other member of the Government, and offered this property for $1,250,000. But Mr. Carvell, on behalf of the Government, did not accept the offer of Mr. Brookfield. Then the Halifax Graving Dock Company started repairing the property and getting it in shape to do the work for which it was intended. The strange part of the situation is that afterwards the Halifax Shipyards Limited was formed-that company having established itself within one hundred yards distance of the Halifax Graving Dock. They purchased a piece of property and thereon built a shipyard. Before that time the shipyard was not in existence. Then it was that the minister-due to some influence which I have not yet discovered although I am endeavouring to find out the reason-acted as he did. I do not blame the minister because evidently he did not know what was happening. Seemingly he cast his vote for the passing of that Order in Council in good faith. Nevertheless I cannot relieve him from his share of the responsibility for the deliberate expropriation of the property of private individuals and the turning of it over to th'e Halifax Shipyards Limited. I do not, as I say, blame the minister, but I say some influence was at work which resulted in the property of the Halifax Graving Dock Company being expropriated by the Government for $1,100,000-not $1,250,000 but $1,100,000. Mr. Brookfiefild and his associates would not accept the offer and they entered an appeal in the Exchequer Court and the matter dragged on for two years. In the meantime some influence was brought to bear on the Government which resulted in the handing over of this valuable dry dock in the city of Halifax to the Halifax Shipyards Limited at a rental of $62,500 for the first year and the understanding that the total purchase price of $1,250,000 was to be paid within a year. The money has never been paid, and the people should know that the Halifax Shipyards Limited, through the operations of the dry dock, have made a profit of some $300,000 since they took the dock over.


Mr. JACOBS:: Have you a list of the directors?


William Duff: The directors are all English; it was an English concern financed with English capital. As I said this afternoon, it is certainly poor advertising for Canada for the Government to deliberately

take the property of British shareholders and turn it over to a local private concern. I want to say further with regard to the Halifax shipyard, that this property was expropriated by the Government without any just cause or reason, and notwithstanding that Mr. Brookfield, the manager of the company, endeavoured before the award was made to have an investigation into the whole affair, for some reason or other the Minister of Railways and his colleagues would not grant any inquiry.


John Dowsley Reid: I never heard of the matter.


William Duff: I know. I am appealing to him because I think he is a fair man. I want to say to him that there is something wrong with this transaction. I do not know who is to blame, but if the minister will follow the trail-I am on the trail myself, but I have not reached very far yet, I am sorry to say-and will connect the Halifax Dry Dock Company with the Halifax Shipyard Limited and the British Empire Steel Company, he may find that the latter company or the Halifax Shipyards were asking $7,250,000 for this dry dock property for which they paid $1,250,000; and this House, the country and I will be grateful to him if he will straighten out this tangle. I would like him to go to the Prime Minister's office and to the office of the Minister of Marine and look over the correspondence which has passed between the directors of the Halifax Dry Dock Company and the Government, for although legally the Halifax Dry Dock Company can go no further, since the award of the Exchequer Court is final, I say that in all fairness and common decency an investigation should be held and Mr. Brookfield and the Halifax Dry Dock Company should be allowed to present their case to the Government which innocently passed this Order in Council for expropriation.
Before the House rose at six o'clock I was placing on Hansard a number of statements in connection with the operations of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. I had read from Hansard a statement, placed there by the Minister of Marine on March 29, and the minister called to my attention the fact that somebody had made a mistake in the figures which were then given. Of course, Mr. Chairman, I was very glad to have the correction. He showed that owing to the omission from that statement of an item of $908,000 for the deferred insurance the figures which he gave on that occasion

showing $1,004,000 profit were correct instead of my calculation from that statement as it appeared showing a paper profit of $95,000. Of course, it was not my fault that the mistake was made. I do not think the minister should be held responsible, but I do think that somebody in his department should have looked over that statement the day after it appeared on Hansard and made the necessary correction.
Now, in order to go further into this matter and to show, as I tried to show before six o'clock, that instead of having any surplus the minister has a deficit, I shall have to bring some more figures to the attention of the committee. Before doing so I would like to call attention to the fact that in the operating account for 1920, at page 1334, the minister allows for depreciation $667,665.46. But if hon. members will look a little further down, on the consolidated balance sheet statement they will see that there the minister allowed $815,841.42 for depreciation. The difference between those two amounts is $158,175.96. Where is that $158,000? It does not appear in the 1919 statement of the minister, and how can he bring forward in his consolidated balance sheet for 1920, $815,000 for depreciation when in his operating statement he has only $667,000, whereas the difference should appear in the 1919 statement? That shows, as I said before recess, that neither the book-keeping of the minister's officials nor of Mr. Hanna's officials, nor the auditing of Marwick Mitchell & Company's staff is to be depended upon.


Mr. McGIBBON (Muskoka):: The hon.
member for Lunenburg is right.


William Duff: I am glad to have the commendation of the hon. member for Muskoka. If my figures are correct-and they are correct-this difference should have been charged off in 1919 and' should be shown in the statement for that year.
In order to place the matter properly before the House and to show fair-minded members both on this and on the other side-because this is not a political question; it is something in which we are all concerned-and reasonable men like the hon. member for Muskoka the way in which this business is being conducted, I want to give to the committee an actual statement of the assets and liabilities of this company as they stand at the present time. I have gone over the accounts very carefully, Mr. Chairman, and I have made up a statement, and if the Minister of Marine and hon. members will follow me they will

find that I have taken the figures in the consolidated balance sheet on page 1334 in some cases in order to make up this statement. I should like to place it on Hansard:
Assets
Vessels in commission at cost.. ..$50,005,892 71 Less depreciation as per ministers statement	 815,841 32
49,190,051 39
Less depreciation on market value of ships 259,783 tons
at $150	 38,967,450 00

Plant and Equipment as per statement office furniture, etc., after deducting 5 per cent for depreciation	 53,553 31
Cash in banks and on hand.. ..	426,816 02
Accounts receivable $1,750,161 36 Less loss in collecting	 175,016 13

 1,575,145	23
Advances to Captains, crews and
agents	
54,605	09Adjusted losses due by indemnities	
67,860	82Insurance claims estimated amount recoverable . . . .	$686,805 51
Less amount not
collectable . .	..	190,000 00

 496,805	51
Deferred insurance	
908,390	73Interest receivable accrued. .	. .	4,583	33Stores & supplies	
44,821	84Victory Bonds 1934.	$500,000 00
Less depreciation.. 25,000 00

Loss to country	$58,669,906 22
There is the actual standing of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine on December 31, 1920-no profit on current account; no profit on operating account; no profit on any other account, but an absolutely loss to this country,in depreciation of the value of ships and in the operation of those ships, of $58,669,906.22.
Now, before I leave that statement, as I have placed in it some items which do not appear in the statement given by the minister, I wish to make a brief reference to them. I have added to the statement made by the minister, interest, in the liability column, amounting to $2,724,474. This is the interest on the investment of 1920, which the Canadian Government Merchant Marine owe to the Finance Department. They also owe to the Finance Department six months' interest on $15,334,513, amounting to $421,699.10. I have also placed in the liability column loss in value of uncompleted ships, 114,470 tons at $150. If hon. gentlemen will turn to the minister's statement of March 29, 1921, as found in Hansard of that date, page 1331, they will see that the minister stated that there were uncompleted at that time two ships of 10,500 tons each, nine ships of 8,300 tons each, and five ships of 3,500 to 3,900 tons each, making a total deadweight capacity of 114,470 tons. Hon. gentlemen may well ask me why in the liability column I placed an amount of $17,170,500 as the loss in value of these uncompleted ships. Well, Sir, with your permission I would like to prove my statement. These ships were contracted for by the Minister of Marine without calling for tenders, without asking the public to make an offer for the building of them at a certain price, with the result that instead of costing the market price, the ships cost anywhere from $215, if my memory serves me correctly, to $167.50 per deadweight ton. But in his own statement as found on Hansard the minister says that these ships cost, on an average, $192 per ton. The House will notice that I have deducted for depreciation in value, $150 per ton, leaving the small sum of $42 per ton as the value of these ships.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I do not know whether or not my hon. friend has' taken off enough.


William Duff: I thank the minister very much for that suggestion; perhaps I have not, but I am willing to leave the public to judge between the minister's statement of March 29 and mine. It would be more dignified on his part if the minister, instead of throwing slurs across this floor, would allow me to finish my statement.
I said, Sir, that some hon. members might wonder why I deducted $150 per ton from the prices which the minister says is the average cost of these ships. It is a large amount, but I think I can prove conclusively to the committee that any hon.


John Dowsley Reid: May I ask the hon. gentleman whether he refers to secondhand ships or to the making of a contract for the construction of new ships of the type that he mentions?


William Duff: $908,000 for deferred insurance. While I have allowed that in deference to the statement of the minister, it is not right or proper that the amount should appear in the statement of assets.
Then the Minister of Railways or the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, or somebody else, due, I' presume to the loyalty which is bubbling out of the hearts of the members of the Conservative party, or the Unionist party, or the National Liberal and Conservative party, when the Government called on the people of this country to invest their savings in the 1934 Victory loan, subscribed $500,000 for the bonds of that issue, for I notice by the statement of assets that somebody holds $500,000 of the Dominion of Canada Victory loan, 1934. Now either the Minister of Marine and Fisheries or his officials, or Mr. Hanna or his officials, or the auditors, Messrs. Mar-win, Mitchell and Company have placed in that statement these Victory bonds at par. Now if they were making up a private statement for the minister or for his bank, for instance, to show how he stood with the world, Messrs. Marwick, Mitchell and Company would immediately say if they were shown in the statement of assets this item of $500,000 for bonds of the 1934 Victory loan: We cannot allow that to pass; the bonds are only worth $475,000 to-day, or $95 to the $100. Consequently, we can allow you on that item a credit of only $475,000. So there is a difference there of $25,000.
I think I have covered the matters in connection with this statement pretty thoroughly, but there is one thing I would like to say to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, especially in view of the fact that the statement issued by the Department of Marine and Fisheries was not what it should have been, and also in view of the fact that the people of this country for the last year or two, and especially during the last six months, have known that the shipping business was in a bad state. Whether or not the Government was justified in building ships, everybody knew the Government must be losing money, because every private individual in the business was losing money. Now, I might be excused for going out and saying about a private company in which I was interested that I was afraid there would be a deficit, and that things were not so rosy as they should be, but with regard to this Government enterprise I say it does not lie in the mouths of the officials of the Marine De-

partment to say twenty-four hours before the minister issued his statement, that there were people in this country who were pessimistic about the merchant marine situation. I say that the officials of the Government should mind their own business, and not give out statements to the newspapers, as did some official in the Marine Department, the day before the minister issued his statement. Let me read what somebody in the minister's department said:
"There's a great disappointment awaiting those who have predicted a deficit" in connection with the operation of the Canadian Merchant Marine. Parliament Hill, the press and the public of Canada, considering the showing of the national railways, have steeled themselves for further heavy losses when the promised merchant marine statement is brought in by Hon. C. C. Ballantyne: "A knockout," the Canadian Press Limited comments, "awaits the pessimists who have confidently predicted an operating deficit." Both the statements quoted as the "official verdict" of the department, and the tone of the press dispatch, have given offence. They imply that members, press and public have been hoping for a deficit.
The fact is that any little hope will come as water in a desert of deficit. If the Canadian Government Merchant Marine shows a profit, with all the facts in to date, then there will not be disappointment, but national gratification. "Do they imagine that people actually like to hear of stunning losses"? demanded one member tonight.
The latter part is the comment of one of the newspapers in this country, and I think everybody will agree with its statement that if the merchant marine shows a profit when all the facts are in, there will not be disappointment but national gratification. I say it does not lie in the rfiouth of any official of the Marine Department to give out such a statement to the Canadian Press, implying that there are members of Parliament in this country, whether on the Government or the Opposition side, who would be delighted to hear of a deficit in the operations of the merchant marine.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If my hon. friend will allow me to interrupt him for a moment, the only statement given out to the press officially was by my secretary, who sat in the gallery under strict orders from me to give out nothing to the members of the Press Gallery until I rose to speak, and then all that was handed to the members of the gallery was what appeared officially on the pages of Hansard. Surely my hon. friend is not going to attribute to any one connected with the merchant marine responsibility for the various newspaper articles which have appeared. I think his fairness of mind will surely grant that.


William Duff: I am trying to be fair,
but it is useless, absolutely useless, for the minister to try and apologise for any of his officials. The country will not-I will not say believe him, but I say it is useless for him to try and apologise for his officials. Let me point out to him that this despatch is dated March 28, and his statement was not made to the House until March 29. So how can he say he gave instructions to his secretary not to give out anything until after he had made his speech, when this statement was given out ' from his Department twenty-four hours before he ever rose to speak.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: What is the name of the paper?


William Duff: It is a paper which supports the minister, the Halifax Herald. The item I have read is contained in a despatch dated March 28, from Ottawa, and was an interview reported by the Canadian Press Limited. The Canadian Press Limited is subsidized by the Government, and we all know they would not give out anything against the Government unless they had received it from one of the minister's officials. Now let us see what else the press of this country say about this merchant marine. Here is another despatch from Halifax. The reason I am reading despatches from Halifax is because Halifax is one of the greatest shipping ports in the world.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I suppose you
have the Toronto papers there as well, the Globe, for instance?


William Duff: If the minister will send
for the Globe and will mark any passage he wishes me to read, I shall be glad to quote it in full and make my comments. I have not the Globe nor have I seen its reference as referred to by the minister. Whatever the Globe said or did not say does not affect the situation. In Halifax we are differently situated. The Globe, I understand, is printed in Toronto, and with all due deference to its editor and those who are associated with it, I must say that they are not in as good a position to size up the situation as are the Halifax newspapers, and newspapers on the Pacific coast. I shall now give an extract from the Halifax Herald. The article is headed "Some Appetite," and underneath this caption is the picture of a great big elephant-a white elephant. Below the picture are the letters "C.G.M.M." which I take to mean "Canadian Government Merchant Marine." One foot of this elephant stands on "Canadian shipping enterprise;" another foot stands on "West India trade," squashing its unfortunate body to death, while another foot is trampling the life out of "private ship owners." On the trunk, and before the feet of this useless beast are scattered the seventy million dollars of the people"s money which the hon. Minister of Marine has wasted. Now for the substance of the article:
Conservative Halifax business men-men who have been in the shipping and exporting business in this city for the past twenty-five years, are outspoken in their criticism of the present management of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. A prominent Halifax business man

a man who has been on the water front for years-gave The Herald the following statement yesterday:
"The number of steamers built and being built for the C.G.M.M. is understood to be 65. These steamers each run from 3,0OiO to 10,000 tons deadweight capacity. It would be probably safe to say that they average 5,000 tons deadweight capacity each, and it is understood that the contract prices were from $180 to $200 per deadweight ton or an average of $190 per deadweight ton. It is not comforting news for the taxpayers of Canada to read in British Shipping papers that recently a new German built steamer was sold in England for nine pounds " sterling per deadweight ton, or at to-day's rate of exchange, slightly under $40.00 as against $190.00 for the Canadian steamers.
"It is alarming to look further into these figures; 65 steamers at an average of 5,000 tons each amounts to 325,000 tons which at a cost of $150 dollars per deadweight ton more than to-day's price in England, means that theii reduced value today is forty-eight millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Had these steamers been sold, as they should have been, when the war was over there is no doubt but that this loss would have been considerable less, probably not one-half of the present depreciation, and the country is now saddled not only with this loss, but with also a probable tremendous yearly loss in operation."
After reading this article in the Halifax Herald, I had occasion to discuss the question of the merchant marine with some of the best business men along the water front of that city. I asked them what they thought of it and they unanimously agreed that there was no question at all as to the absolute correctness of the figures quoted; they all agreed that they were within the limit. Now, let me give the minister a little more food for reflection. Here is an article headed "Must Face Facts". The minister will no doubt be anxious to know the source from which I shall quote, and I am confident that the newspaper in which the article appears would not say anything detrimental to this Government if it were possible for its editor or its proprietor to say anything in their defence. This article also appears in the Halifax Herald, a supporter of the

son, -has 200 of one type of ship tied up, and a consular report cabled from London says a big slump is noted in the British shipping trade at all ports. From the shipbuilding side of the matter the situation is no better. Japanese shipyards are reported to have comparatively little to do, and a Tyne river (British) shipbuilder is quoted in the day's news as saying cancellations in that line were never more numerous, he instancing one concern that had sixteen cancellations."
It is, therefore, a discouraging situation in which the Canadian mercantile fleet is placed Like the National Railway, deficits are likely to be the order of the day and the people may prepare to bear no small monetary burden as the price of the policy justifiable in its inception, but as to the wisdom of the continuance of which there may well be misgiving
That is what the Montreal Gazette says.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I suppose
' the hon. member would have no objection to give to the House the very favourable editorial published by the Montreal Gazette the day after I made my statement in the House?


William Duff: I have not that editorial
in my possession. If the minister will supply me with it I will be very glad to read it.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: It is there.


William Duff: Where.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: In the Montreal Gazette.


William Duff: Will the minister be good
enough,-because I am very busy with the delivery of my speech as I have prepared it,- to send a page out and get the issue of the Montreal Gazette to which he refers, and I will be very glad to read the editorial. I said a moment ago that the Montreal Gazette asked the Government to resign after the Peterborough election, hut after influence had been brought to bear on that paper it pulled in its horns and since then has been apologizing for the actions of the Government. Now, Sir, I will read what another newspaper says with respect to the Government's shipbuilding operations. It is contained in a despatch sent out from Ottawa and says:
The minister gives only one side of the C.G. M.M. story for the year ended December 31, 1920, that is, when it affirms a net operating profit of some $781,460. A man running a gasoline ferry would hardly be expected to strike a balance of profit and forget to debit the account with interest on the money he borrowed to buy the boat.
Nor would he be expected to forget that his boat was wearing out and that some time he would he faced with the necessity of buying a new one. But that is what the minister does.
Because he does not know any better.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is pretty
severe.


William Duff: I know it is but it is absolutely correct. While I am waiting for the minister to pass me the Gazette referred to, I should like to avert for a few moments to what another member of the Government said with regard to the merchant marine. After the Minister of Marine had made his statement last Tuesday, and after some very fair criticisms had been made by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) and the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) the Prime Minister was compelled to come to the defence of his minister. Now, if there is anything the Prime Minister knows absolutely nothing about it is shipping conditions in this country, and I say that he had no right to intervene in the debate on a subject of which he is absolutely ignorant. I will prove to the satisfaction of hon. members that the Prime Minister did not know what _he was talking about when he made the remarks which appeared on Hansard of March 29, at page 1346. He endeavoured to save the face of the Minister of Marine and the Government and in endeavouring to combat the arguments advanced by the hon. member for Red Deer and the hon. member for Maisonneuve he said:
I am sorry that, as things have turned out, hon. members opposite were found prepared for a very dismal presentation whereas, as a matter of fact, the statement made by the Minister of Marine reflects anything but a disastrous situation-possibly it is not as rosy as many of us expected when the programme was launched, certainly not as rosy as there were just reasons for expecting at that time, but on the whole fair and satisfactory.
Now when I said a few moments ago that some official in his department had given out a statement to the Canadian press the Minister of Marine denied it. Perhaps after all he was right; it may have been the Prime Minister who gave out that statement.


An hon. MEMBER:: It sounds like it.


William Duff: Yes.
I am sorry that, as things have turned out, hon. members opposite were found prepared for a very dismal presentation, whereas, as a matter of fact, the statement made by the Minister of Marine reflects anything but a disastrous situation-
Well, Mr. Chairman, if the Prime Minister can get any comfort from the present condition of the merchant marine as shown either in the operating account or in the capital account, then I say he is welcome to that comfort, but I can assure him that the people will not agree with his statement that that condition of affairs is satisfactory. And I should like to know why

the Prime Minister dared to interfere in the debate to say to hon. members either on this side of the House or the other that they were "prepared for a very dismal presentation" of the facts. Is that a fair statement to make? I say the Prime Minister was not justified in so speaking.
The Prime Minister also made another statement which I would like to quote because I want to show conclusively that he did not know what he was talking about. It will be found at page 1348 of Hansard of the same date and is in these words:
Well, they are at least earning a good sum over operating expenses,-and you cannot make any trains do that over the Trascontinental railway, nor over the Grand Trunk Pacific railway- Those ships are at least earning some million odd dollars over operating expenses, and after allowance for depreciation and every other just allowance that need he made they are still able to pay a small percentage upon their actual cost,-
_ I say, Sir, that the Prime Minister had no right to make such a statement in view of the fact that these ships are not making a profit. They never have made a profit,-indeed, they are making a loss which this country is ill able to stand. I do not want to use hard language, but there are times when we have to be candid, and the Prime Minister would not have made these statements unless he was entirely ignorant of the facts connected with the merchant marine.
I have to thank the minister for the article, not from the Gazette but La Presse. I am only sorry that it is not in the original French version. I see it has been translated, and before I proceed to read it I want to say that I would not be surprised if the minister's department or the English translator has made the same blunder as was perpetrated in regard to the pilots. We all remember the answer we got from the minister in which he said that certain "decayed" pilots were receiving a bonus. It is only another instance of the way in which the Marine Department is conducted. There seems to be no person there who knows anything about its affairs.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Hear, hear.


William Duff: 
Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Read on.


William Duff: Do not worry; I will read on. I want to repeat that about the exploitation :
There is no reason for recrimination any more than there is for being alarmed. The Canadian Government Marine is an enterprise at its beginning and it could not be expected to escape the vicissitudes which accompany all new initiatives.
From the figures quoted in the House by the Hon. Mr Ballantyne it would appear that the cost of operating our vessels has been reasonable and compares favourably with that of foreign shipping.
It should not be overlooked, on the other hand, that the cost of construction of these vessels, built during the war, has been excessive ; that was a general law during the war period. There is therefore no need to be astonished beyond measure that the profits of exploitation are insufficient to meet the interest on this excessive capital.
On the whole, credit should ge given this enterprise and we should be resigned to support the cost of such an initiative which must be considered an economic necessity, Canada being destined to reap great advantages from the same within a short time.
Evidently there is somebody in this country who is not seized with the facts regarding world shipping, somebody who is willing to pay that tribute to the merchant

marine and the results which the minister has obtained.


An hon. MEMBER:: He did not know any better.


William Duff: Of course he did not know any better; that is the whole trouble. He took the minister's figures, and that is why he made the statement that he did. But there is not very much comfort for the minister in this article. It is not necessary for me to deal with it in detail, because I have already covered these points. If my hon. friend will look at Hansard to-morrow and refer to my previous statements, he will find that I have answered all the points brought forward by La Presse and that La Presse has not one leg to stand upon so far as anything favourable to the Canadian Government Merchant Marine is concerned.
With regard to the costs of building these ships, to which I have referred, I may say that the worst is yet to come. The minister made certain contracts, on his own initiative, and without calling for tenders, with certain shipbuilding concerns in this country. For one reason or another, which I shall not discuss at the moment, these shipyards were compelled to go into liquidation, and by reason of the loose manner in which the Minister of Marine had the contracts drawn he is now compelled to have other ship-building concerns take over the half-completed ships from these different shipyards to be finished on a cost plus basis. Instead these ships costing the country $190 a ton, therefore, they will cost nearly $250 a ton before the minister gets through with his contract. Now, Sir, what is the result of all this effort on the part of the Government to build these ships at ' the highest possible prices and endeavour to operate them in competition with private enterprise? I agree that we should have a merchant marine; I agree that we should have a Canadian merchant marine, but a marine built with private capital. There was no good reason why, after a certain stage was reached, the minister should not have disposed of these ships, should not have sold them in such a manner as not to interfere with the operations of private concerns in this country.
I omitted to mention, Sir, that not only are we going to suffer a loss of about $59,000,000 on the operation and depreciation in value of these ships, but the minister and the Government have another serious matter to deal with. It will be remembered that the minister made a contract

with a certain steel company in this country for the delivery of 250,000 tons of ship plates. As a result of the Government not taking delivery of all these plates-if I am correctly informed the Government took delivery of only 45,000 tons instead of the full order of 250,000 tons-the Government are going to have a lawsuit on their hands. This company claim that in good faith they went ahead, spent $5,000,000 in putting up a plate mill, bought the steel and prepared to turn out the 250,000 tons of steel plates. The Government have not been able to carry out their contract and the company are now asking from the Government, if I am correctly informed, $15,000,000 to $18,000,000 by way of damages. .


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Oh, no.


William Duff: How much?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: It is hardly worth my while rising to answer such exaggerated statements.


William Duff: Will the minister tell us how much?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Yes, I will tell my hon. friend with pleasure. The Government have cancelled the contract, as the hon. member states, but we have no claim whatever from the Dominion Iron & Steel Company. If they are entitled to compensation for the cancellation of the contract by the Government, the Exchequer Court will determine the amount of that compensation. But it will be nowhere near the amount my hon. friend has mentioned.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: How much?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I cannot tell what decision the Exchequer Court will come to. But my hon. friend might just as well say $100,000,000 as to say $15,000,000 to $18,000,000.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What claim is made by the Dominion Iron & Steel Company?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Cancellation of
contract.


Rodolphe Lemieux: What amount do they claim?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: They have not
claimed any amount.


William Duff: I stated that on account of the cancellation by the Government of their contract with the Dominion Iron & Steel Company, it was the purpose of that company to claim from the Government some $15,000,000 or $18,000,000 by way of damages, and the minister immediately said that was not correct. When he rose

I assumed that he was going to tell us something; that he was going to inform us that there was absolutely no claim on the part of the company.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: No, no.


William Duff: 
Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: When any hon. member grossly exaggerates figures, it does not do the Government any harm and it does not do the people any harm, so that when he says that the Dominion Iron & Steel Company are going to claim the exorbitant sum of $15,000,000 to $18,000,000 I am perfectly satisfied to let it' go at that.


William Duff: The minister said there was no claim; how does he know whether my figures are excessive or not? It does not lie in his mouth to say that the claim will not be from $15,000,000 to $18,000,000. When this matter is pressed and the Government has to pay the bill-and a sweet bill it will be, too-another $5,000,000 or $10,000,000 or $15,000,000, whatever the award of the Exchequer Court may be, will be added to the $59,000,000, the amount of loss which the country has sustained in connection with the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am sorry to
interrupt the hon. member when he is making a speech. I have had, of course, discussions with the Dominion Iron and Steel Company. The mill itself cost about $5,000,000. The claim, if any, that the Dominion Iron and Steel Company would have would be in regard to the remaining portion of the contract that the Dominion Government did not take, and there are
200,000	tons yet to be taken, supposing that the Government had not cancelled the contract. Does the hon. member mean to state that they would make fifteen to eighteen million dollars on 200,000 tons of plate?


William Duff: I do not know that I need-


Peter McGibbon: Follow it up.


William Duff: The hon. member is not
satisfied. I am very glad. If I remember aright, the minister made an excessive contract with these people of something like $83 per ton on this business. What I say is that the Dominion Iron and Steel -and I got the information from people who seem to know-are reported to be going to claim for the full value of the
200,000	tons of steel, and damages for having to put up an expensive, plant at Sydney. Whether the amount is $5,000,000, or $10,000,000, or $15,000,000, they certainly have an action for damages against the Government, and that action will be decided in their favour in the Exchequer Court or some other way. Consequently, whether that amount is $5,000,000, or $10,000,000, or $15,000,000, the amount must be added to the $59,000,000 loss which the country has to swallow, because we have in the Government men who do not understand the shipping business.
As well as losing this vast sum of money to the country, owing to the fact that the Government have entered into the shipping business in competition with private enterprises, they have practically ruined all private shipping interests on the two oceans. I know, perhaps, more about the Atlantic coast than the Pacific; but during the war men with small means invested practically their last cent in wooden vessels in Nova Scotia. These vessels were built at a high price, because the people of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick wanted to do what little they could to help the Empire in the war. The result is that to-day these ships are lying at anchor with nothing to do, because Government ships, which are losing thousands and thousands of dollars every day, have taken the business away, not only from steamers, but from sailing vessels. That is the joke of this whole tragedy, because the sailing vessels can sail faster than the minister's slow tramp steamers; they can beat his steamers in any Voyage they want to make. But the Government steamers are taking away the business from the wooden ships of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, with the result that large numbers of wooden ships are tied up in the ports of those provinces with nothing to do.
This Government-and I am now referring to competition with steamers-are running their steamers in competition with steamers or lines of steamers to which the

country is paying subsidies voted by this Parlia'ment. Let me refer the committee to the routes which the minister mentioned in his speech and on which these vessels operate. At page 1332 of Hansard, these routes are mentioned. I will not read them all:
Fortnightly sailings Canada to Liverpool.
Fortnightly sailings Canada to Barbados, Trinidad and Demerara.
Three-weekly sailings Canada to Nassau, Kingston and Belize.
Monthly sailings Canada to Pernambuco, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires.
This afternoon the minister mentioned that he is running a line of ships between Halifax, N.S. and St. John's, Newfoundland, although I cannot find it in this list. If you refer, Sir, to page 46 of the Estimates, you will find that this country is paying a certain steamship line to run a service between Halifax and St. John's, Newfoundland, $35,000. Yet these gentlemen, who are in charge of the Government merchant marine, are deliberately putting steamers on the same route in competition with the boats to which they are paying a subsidy. In addition to the line to which the Government are paying a subsidy on the Halifax-Newfoundland route and which is operated by a private company, the Furness-Withy Company, there are also two other companies operating steamers between Halifax and Newfoundland. There is a British company known as the Red Cross Line. What does that mean? These private companies have built up this business in the last number of years. They operated their ships during the war, and you, Sir, will no doubt remember the Red Cross ship which was sunk by a submarine off New York on her way from Newfoundland to New York, via Halifax. During the war they took the good with the bad and the bad with the good, but they have kept up a satisfactory service between Halifax and St. John's, Newfoundland. The Canadian Government Merchant Marine, however, because they know nothing about shipping and do not know what to do with their steamers, put their steamers on this route to interfere with private business and private ownership. What else did they do? In the Estimates at page 46, this item appears in the subsidies column:
Canada and the West Indies or South America, or both, steam service or services between, $340,666.66.
At the invitation of this Government some four or five years ago English capital-

ists-and I want to show how this Government treat people in England who are willing to invest their money in this country, and yet when the time comes to flap the flag, they are the Imperialists and Loyalists and we on this side are whatever they like to call us-a reputable English concern, decided to put on a line of boats between Halifax and West Indian ports, giving a fortnightly service to several ports in the West Indies. One of the considerations was that the Government should pay them a subsidy of $340,666.66 a year. Yet we find now that this Government, not knowing what to do with their boats, deliberately placed these slow tramp steamers in competition with the boats of the Royal Mail Packet Company. Not only do they take part of the freight away from that company, frieght which the Government under that contract should endeavour to give to them, but they are also interfering with the wooden vessels of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. To show you, Sir, the information in the possession of this Government with regard to this important matter, let me quote what the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) said when my hon. friend (Mr. Ross)* asked him why the Government were running steamers in competition with this company which is being subsidized by the Government. It is well that the people of this country should know what kind of men we have at the head of the different departments of Government. I say that these men ought to get out, and the quicker they get out, the better. Listen to this:


Mr. ROSS :: I am very much inclined to agree with my hon. friend (Mr. Cahill) with regard to this particular item. It seems to me that when we are spending $340,000 a year subsidizing boats for a service to the West Indies, and when vessels of the Canadian Merchant Marine make thirty-two trips, apparently, to the same ports that these vessels serve, we might very well effect some economy here.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: Not to the same
ports; they are thousands of miles apart.
There is only one conclusion, and that is that the Minister of Trade and Commerce, a servant of the Crown and of the people, is absolutely ignorant of where the boats go which, are owned by the Canadian Government and the ones subsidized by his department. There is no other conclusion to come to, and I say that no one is fit to hold a portfolio or to be in charge of a department who would make such a statement of that kind to the House.
The minister was also anxious to put on Hansard a statement as to the kind of'

business the boats were doing, and the kind of cargoes they were carrying. Oh yes, these boats were expanding our export trade. Beautiful! It certainly reads very nice to the unitiated, but let me dissect the (natter for a moment or two. One of our steamers that goes to Cuba, and the exports have consisted mainly of pulp and paper, malt, flour, hay, lumber, fish, potatoes, whiskey, oats and cement. This cargo was carried in the steamer' called, if I remember rightly, the Canadian Mariner. Now I am going to make a humble suggestion to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries. I would suggest that he change her name, and that he do as he did last fall, get the hon. member for King's, the ex-Prime Minister, to rechristen her. We all remember how when the ex-Prime Minister and the Minister of Marine went down to Halifax to christen a boat, before she was christened she slipped into the water. She did not want the right hon. gentleman to christen her.


Samuel William Jacobs: Was she a self-starter?


William Duff: This steamer which was
carrying the products of this country in the shape of whiskey was the Canadian Mariner, if I remember correctly.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The Canadian "Walker".


William Duff: She should be re-christened
the Canadian Bootlegger. Here we have a Government passing prohibition legislation and using their own ships of the Merchant Marine to take whiskey from this country to Cuba. Consequently, I say the minister would be well advised if he could get the hon. member for King's, N.S., to re-christen her the Canadian Bootlegger.


Andrew Ross McMaster: How did she come
back from Cuba?


William Duff: She came back light. I
want to give a little more information as to how these Government steamers interfere with the legitimate business of private concerns. Before coming to that, however, I wish to say that a night or two ago the hon. member for Halifax, in speaking to his motion for a committee to investigate the National Railways and shipping, made certain statements by way of illustrating his argument, one of which was that the service operated by the minister from Halifax to St. John's, Newfoundland, was losing money in view of the fact that freights had declined, and that the ships were sailing back and forth with practically only half a cargo. The minister in his usual way-I need not describe it because you
all know how he does it; evidently his conscience has been pricking him lately, for he cannot sit still-the other evening when the hon. member for Halifax said that these Government boats were losing money, got up and asked, "How do you know they are losing money?"


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Hear, hear.


William Duff: Hear, hear, absolutely. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries was quite right. The hon. member for Halifax does not know they are losing money, but will the minister tell me those boats are not losing money?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Yes.


William Duff: Well, I have to take his
word, but if he were outside the precints of this House, I would say that he did not know what he was talking about. These boats are losing money, thousands of dollars a day. When I get through I would like the minister to give me a statement of how they are making money. It is impossible for them to make money when they leave Halifax with half a cargo and come back with their propellers racing from the time they leave St. John's until they get to Halifax.
There is another matter. We may as well have the whole story. The minister told us last year that the Government did not employ brokers to get business for their ships. Now that was a very bad admission for him to make, because the only way to handle ships properly is to have brokers in the different ports to get business for them before they arrive. If you have no broker, and have to wait until the ship arrives in port, she will likely have discharged her inward cargo, if she has any, long before the captain or somebody else, for the Government have no agents, can get an outward cargo for his ship. Here again I find the minister did not know what was actually being done by the officials who are mismanaging this great company. We find that somebody- I do not know whether it was Colonel John Cooper, or who-in an endeavour to promote business for the Government boats entered into an arrangement with certain New York shipping interests to come into what is known as the New York Shipping Pool. Now a gentleman who does not know anything about shipping, and who goes to New York among the shipping sharks to enter into an arrangement with them, well, all I can say is Heaven help him. Somebody entered into an arrangement on behalf of these 47 or 63 boats, whereby they

agreed not to cut rates, that is to say, the Canadian boats were to take no lower rates from Canadian ports than the New York boats were getting from New York ports. The result was that thousands of barrels of apples from King's county and Annapolis county, and good apples they were too, and no doubt from Ontario as well, which were ready to be shipped to the London market and were offered to the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, had to be refused because they had entered into this agreement with the New York pool. Were these apples shipped on Canadian steamers, on British steamers, on United States steamers? No, on Norwegian steamers. Here is a list of the ships that were chartered because the officials of the Government merchant marine did not know their business and refused these shipments of apples from Halifax to the Mother Country:
Steamers Chartered for Apples
Caxambu	. $1.50	Barrels 14,000Angelica Maersk	, . 2.00	12,000Knut Hamsun	, . 1.75	. 20,000Lisa Brodin	. 1.75	15,000Marstenen	. 2.00	15,000Anders	. 1.75	15,000Danefelt	. . 10s.	14,000Vesla	. 2.00	10,000Lorentz W. Hansen. . .	. 1.50	18,000Harald	. 1.50	8,000
Now, Sir, I have not the total number of barrels or the total amount of freight, but I know that we had ships owned by the Canadian Government Merchant Marine leaving Halifax day after day with practically no cargoes, and going to other ports, although they refused Canadian products at $1.50, $2 and $1.75 per barrel for apples; and they allowed Norwegians to come here and take away the Canadian business. Yet they try to make out that they know something about running ships.


An hon. MEMBER:: Why did they refuse Canadian products?


William Duff: Because, in the first place, they had an agreement with the New York Shipping Pool; and in the second place, they do not know their business.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Hear, hear.


William Duff: I am glad to hear the minister say "hear, hear;" he is evidently coming to his senses.


Andrew Ross McMaster: You have converted him.


William Duff: I am not the first person who has converted him, I am sorry to say.

Now, here is what a large shipowner says with regard to these steamers:
I suppose that complaints are like "water on a cluck's back" to the present minister and his friends, but unless a change is made, it looks to me as if the shipowners of this province are going to be wiped out. I thought these ships were built first as a war measure and secondly to develop Canadian exports. It is rather amusing to note the development of Canadian business as brought about by these steamers. With the exception of one or two routes they are simply running on trade routes established and operated by shipowners of this province before Mr. Ballantyne and his shipbuilding friends were ever heard of-
Listen to that; there is an insinuation there, I am sorry to say.
-'before Mr. Ballantyne and his shipbuilding friends were heard of. Take for instance the West India Route, for which the Government pays the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company a subsidy of $330,000 a year, and which trade was developed by the enterprise of a local firm.
Mr. Ballantvne's steamers are now running in fierce competition with this line. Can Mr. Ballantyne or any one else explain the wisdom of this, or how much this line tends to develop Canadian trade? For the past century our Canadian schooners-
That is to say, wooden vessels.
-have looked after the molasses business, which the steamers, to a certain extent, let them do to a certain extent, as they got the sugar carrying. I understand from Barbadoes' advices that Mr. Ballantyne's steamers are making every effort possible to get every pucheon of molasses they can, thus taking away the business from us. For many years our Nova Scotia and Newfoundland vessels-
Again, wooden schooners.
- have done practically all the fish carrying to Brazil and the Argentine, and have always done it satisfactorily. Now, Mr. Ballantyne's steamers are bidding for this business, and will probably succeed in taking it away from us, as rates on some routes do not seem to matter; whereas on other routes they have to jcin the North Atlantic Pool and have their rates dictated to them from New York.
I might also add that the estimates of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in addition to the West India and Newfoundland trade, provide subsidies to vessels going to South Africa, Australia and other places, and yet the Government are putting ships on these routes on which they are paying subsidies to other lines. It might be interesting to know what some of these ships are doing. Here is a short extract from a good Government paper, the Montreal Gazette. This article reads as fol- ' lows:
The fact that the Canadian Government vessel Canadian Explorer, en route from Australia to Vancouver, was able to relieve the population of Fanning Island, is gratifying; but the remainder of the Vancouver despatch

which says that the Explorer brought only a few hundred tons of cargo, and a large quantity of mud ballast-


Rodolphe Lemieux: What?


William Duff: Mud ballast.
-is not quite so cheering. Carrying mud around the Pacific ocean is not a moneymaking enterprise even for Government ships.
Did the Minister of Finance hear that?


Henry Lumley Drayton: No.


William Duff: Then, before he decides to pay over to some one this $8,000,000, I should like him to read my speech to-morrow.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: It would take too long.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We should
never get through with it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We might, perhaps next week.	.


William Duff: I venture to say that the people will read my speech just as much as any speech of the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Stevens). I am not interested in building elevators, dry docks, or wharves. Now, this article in the Montreal Gazette, says that this steamer came back -I presume from Australia-carrying three hundred tons of cargo, which would be only about 10 per cent of her carrying capacity, and the rest, mud ballast. It is indeed quite cheering. The Government steamers take lumber from Vancouver and other Pacific ports, cargo of a kind which ordinary sailing vessels could carry, thus taking the bread out of the mouths of the owners of sailing ships; and they come back, after a sail of twenty-five or twenty-six days, carrying nothing but mud ballast.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Shame.


William Duff: It is a.shame, and I cannot express my indignation in parliamentary language; but the minister will, no doubt, conceive what I may not express. Here is another Cuban story:
Luck even in the discharging of her liquor cargo was with the Halifax built steamer Canadian Mariner. This novel occurrence for the port of St. John was consummated by the Canadian Government Merchant Marine who shipped the last case of the cargo Friday night. A close watch was kept during the unloading process and the C.G.M.M. officials are delighted to report that they got the cargo through without a single loss.' This was the maiden round voyage of the Mariner with Captain Starratt in command. She took on her cargo at Genoa and other Italian ports and Captain Starratt reported that
the voyage had been a very successful one. Her cargo consisted of 2,000 cases of Italian wine and several thousand cases of vermouth and other liquors.
Now, here is a ship coming all the way from Italy and other Mediterranean ports with 2,000 cases of wine and several thousand cases of vermouth.


Samuel William Jacobs: Was there mud on that
steamer?


William Duff: No, but she had water
ballast. Now, this shows conclusively that these ships are not loaded.


Samuel William Jacobs: No, not the ships.


William Duff: I have heard of the crews
of other ships being loaded, but no one can truthfully make such a charge against the ships. This was about the time that the prohibition law passed by this Parliament, went into effect in the city of St. John. Here is another despatch from Halifax, headed "Steamer Just 'Ducks In" as Dry Line Closes."


An hon. MEMBER:: A Government
steamer?


William Duff: Yes. The article says:
Perhaps it was jealousy on the part of Neptune and Aeolue which led'them to threaten the bibulous followers of Bacchus in Halifax and Nova Scotia with the loss of 18,000 cases of good Scotch whiskey which was shipped on January 15 from Glasgow, for Halifax, by the Canadian Runner. More probably it was just a friendly joke as they did not carry their threat into effect.


An hon. MEMBER:: Another Government steamer?


An hon. MEMBER:: What is the name- "Rum Runner"?


William Duff: No; "Canadian Runner."
The article continues:
Whatever it was, for thirteen of the fifteen day voyage of the Runner they gave her one rough time of at as can be inferred from the fact that ordinarily she would have made the run in nine or ten days. Meantime, while she was battling with tempestuous winds and mountainous seas the thirsty ones of Halifax were breathless in an ocean of doubt.
" Would the 18,000 oases of joy water arrive in time," was the question which was whispered in dark places and empty cellars.
When at six o'clock Sunday evening the Runner anchored in the harbour more than one good citizen wended his way to church with a lighter heart and joined in the hymns with a lustier voice than was his want.
And further on:
Ordinarily the C.M.G. steamers remain in the stream until morning but-
I presume on the advice contained in a telegram or marconigram from the officials of the department-


An hon. MEMBER:: Sympathetic souls.


William Duff: (reading)
The good ship was tied up at Pier 23, south end terminals, (by 11 o'clock, ready to be unloaded at first dawn of Blueyear's Eve. All yesterday, from morning until dark, a full force worked at full blast to place those 18,100 cases safely ashore, stopping only when it .vas accomplished. .


An hon. MEMBER:: Where was that whiskey bound for?


William Duff: I do not know, it may have been intended for Nova Scotia. But here is a Canadian Government steamer, owned and paid for by the people of this country with only a part cargo. I do not care very much what she brought although the Government should because they are prohibitionists; but I do say it proves conclusively that these Government steamers cannot pay when a ship worth a million and a half of dollars leaves the port of Glasgow and crosses the ocean with the small cargo of 18,000 cases of joy water. Now let us go a little further and see how our merchant marine is developing Canadian trade. Developing Canadian trade forsooth! Here is another newspaper extract:
Steamer Canadian Voyageur, Captain Sprosen, leaves on Monday for Baltimore, having been chartered to load there for Tampico. The Voyageur, since her arrival here several weeks ago, has had her machinery thoroughly overhauled and is now in first-class condition again for long voyages.
I would like to call the attention of the House to the fact that this steamer left for Baltimore which, as we all know, is a port on the Delaware river in the United States. The Canadian Voyager left Halifax without a pound of freight in her hold to develop Canadian trade, remember, and proceeded to Baltimore having been chartered there to load for Tampico. Now where is Tampico? It certainly is not in England. I would not mind her going to Baltimore to load goods for the Mother Country but this vessel loaded goods from Baltimore, a United States port, for Tampico, Mexico.


An hon. MEMBER:: Was that whiskey too?


William Duff: No these were goods that were manufactured in the United States and taken down to Tampico, in Mexico, yet the Minister of Marine gets up and with a straight face and serious mien endeavours to impress the House and the country witli the idea that these Government steamers are being built and operated to develop the

foreign trade of Canada. Here is another illustration:
The only steamship arrival Good Friday was the C.G.M.M. freighter Canadian Rancher, Captain Dickson, from Liverpool via Swansea. She is at Pier 23, south end terminals, to discharge 300 tons of general cargo, loaded at Liverpool, and then moves up to the Dockyard to land 1,000 tons coal she took on at Swansea for the Admiralty.
Now see the way in which the gentlemen in charge of this business are looking after the interests of the mercantile marine. Just imagine any private shipowner sending a steamship of the Canadian Ranger's size from Liverpool, England, to Swansea, Wales. She loaded 800 tons of cargo at Liverpool and then she was to proceed to Wales to take on board 1,000 tons of coal for the Admiralty. The point I want to make is that 1,000 tons of coal only occupies about one-seventh of the ship's freight capacity, and yet these bunglers send her from Liverpool with 300 tons of cargo in her hold down to Swansea to load 1,000 tons of coal to bring to Halifax. Any person in the shipping business knows that it is the grossest kind of mismanagement to send a ship from one port to the other unless there is a good paying cargo available. For instance, this ship, in order to get out of Liverpool, had to pay her disbursements and port charges there on 300 tons of cargo for which she received a very small amount of compensation; yet these bunglers sent her down to another port where her port charges and disbursement accounts would eat up not only the freight on the 300 tons of goods but also the freight charges on the Admiralty coal. These are the men who come here and ask us to vote $8,000,000 to enable them to build more ships under their present shipbuilding programme.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame.


William Duff: I now want to read an
extract from the proceedings of the British Chamber of Shipping. I have here an account of the forty-fourth annual meeting of the British Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom held in London on February 25. I am quoting this in order if possible, to impress upon the House the reason why it should not vote this money, and the mistake we all made in sanctioning previous votes for this purpose. I will not quote the whole of the proceedings, but at this meeting the president called upon Mr. Howard Houlder, a large shipbuilder, to move a certain resolution. The resolution is in part as follows 2

This Chamber desires to place on record its recognition of the success of the steps taken in furtherance of the British Government's policy of restoring the complete freedom of the mercantile marine, and its conviction that the best interests of the communities of the world will be served, only be leaving shipping entirely to private enterprise and by opening and keeping open all ports of the world to international shipping without discrimination.
That was the resolution. In the course of his remarks this shipowner said:
Now, with regard to the second section of the resolution, which is, that this meeting is asked to express its conviction that the best interests of the communities of the world will be served only by leaving shipping entirely to private enterprise, and by opening and keeping open all ports of the world to international shipping without discrimination, in my judgment -the only way in which our maritime supremacy can be maintained is by leaving the management of the business of shipping to private initiative and the enterprise of individuals.
Further on Mr. Howard Glover said this:
Of course, bureaucracies can do anything, and the Americans have proved that they have been able to produce a mercantile marine, but they find themselves to-day with a fleet of ships which I should think it would not be an exaggeration to say are not worth a fifth of what they cost, and even at that value there is not the remotest chance of making a halfpenny profit. What the American nation are going to do with those ships Heaven only knows. I, for one, am of the opinion that if our Government had been composed of real statesmen, six months after the armistice they would have got rid of nearly all their controls and realized their stocks. They would have made a colossal loss, but the liquidation of those stocks would only have added to the losses already sustained through the war.
I would like to commend these words to the Minister of Marine and the members of the House. These gentlemen in Great Britain spoke quite truly when they said the Government would have acted wisely by handing over the ships to private control immediately after the war. It is quite true that lately they have done so, and the Americans are in favour of doing it every day, but our Government and the men in charge of this matter are going on running these ships wnthout cargo and not knowing what they are going to do for future business.
What is the remedy for this condition of affairs? I think I am voicing the sentiments of the great majority of the people of Canada when I say that they realise whether the policy was a good one when it was inaugurated or not, that the only right and proper thing for the Government to do is to dispose of these ships as early as possible either by sale or otherwise.
As I said a moment ago, what is the prospect this year for the Canadian Government marine? Is it going to make a profit or is it going to make a further loss?
I have made up a statement which I am going to put on Hansard and which I am willing to leave to the judgment of the business men of this country. I have gone into this matter carefully after consultation with shipping men who know their business, and they agree with me that my estimates are fair and reasonable. I am going to show that the operation of our merchant marine for 1921, will result in a loss. I do not believe that the minister or the Government realise what is going to be the result of their operation for 1921. As I said this afternoon, during the first eight or nine months of 1920 freights were almost as high as they were at any time during the war, and private capital invested in shipping gave a good return. I have proved conclusively to this committee that the Minister of Marine and his officials have made a staggering loss in 1920 when freights were high and business was good up to August or September and they had only three bad months. In view of that result, what is going to happen today when freights have gone down 200 and 300 per cent, when business is scarce, and when the operating cost has depreciated very little? It is true that wages are a little lower, but practically all the supplies required for running these steamers such as coal, oil, and everything else are, as the minister stated, at very high prices, and these prices are not likely to decline in the very near future. This is the statement that I want to place on Hansard: Estimate of operating account for 1921:
Dr
Operating expenses of 63 ships for
12 months at $875,000 per month.$10,500,000 Interest on $70,000,000 at 5J
per cent	 3,850,000
Depreciation on present value.. 750,000
Making a total of	$15,100,000
Cr
Credit by probable revenue based on
present assets	 8,500,000
Leaving a loss on operation for
the year 1921 of	$ 6,600,000
It will be noticed that I have only allowed depreciation on the present value of the vessels. If I had figured depreciation ijn the actual value the amount to be debited would be very much larger, but in order to be fair, as I deducted from my statement this afternoon the present value of the vessels from the original cost, I feel it is


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Carried.


William Duff: I may say to my hon. friend that this item is not going to carry tonight.


An hon. MEMBER:: It will carry in the morning.


William Duff: It will be perhaps carried some morning. The minister visited Halifax some time ago and he made a promise to the people of that city. I have here a newspaper article which makes reference to that promise. The minister or somebody connected with his department gave his pledged word that the ships built in the port of Halifax would be registered at that port. Is that correct?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: Quite correct.


William Duff: The minister admits that he gave his word, and the word of a minister of the Crown and a member of the Privy Council should not be lightly broken. Here is what the Halifax Herald says in this connection:
The contempt with which the Department of Marine has broken the pledged word of its chief administrator to the great port of Halifax has stirred up a feeling of bitter resentment. To advertise the port of Montreal with the products of the port of Halifax is an imposition which intensifies the feeling that the Maritime Provinces are being deliberately ignored at Ottawa. For Hon. C. C. Ballantyne, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, to establish himself an enthusiastic propagandist for Montreal, and no less at the expense of breaking promises, is ap embarrassing situation for a minister of the Crown, responsible to all the people, and not to interested citizens in Montreal only.
Mr. Ballantyne perhaps has not yet realized the fact that as a member of the Government he represents the entire Dominion, wherein the ports of Halifax and Vancouver have played a part of relatively equal importance to the port of Montreal.
The duty of the maritime members is plain. If they can get no satisfaction from the Minis* ter of Marine, they must push their claims further. At all events they must not be satisfied with being put off by any more tinsel excuses.
I presume he means the Tory members.
And the Nova Scotia Senators.
That paragraph appears in the Halifax Herald, because the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, as he stated, told the citizens of Halifax that when the ships built in that port were launched, they would be registered in Halifax. This is a further despatch with regard to this matter:
A letter read from the Acting Deputy Minister of the Department of Marine with reference to the registration of the C.M.M.S. Canadian Mariner. The hoard of trade had a promise from the Minister of Marine that the ships constructed in Halifax would be registered at this port, but it was found the Mariner had been registered elsewhere and the council of the hoard protested. The letter from the deputy minister stated it was entirely due to an oversight and that it was originally intended she should have been registered here, hut in future the vessels built in

Halifax for the Canadian Merchant Marine will be registered here. The board will ask foi the transfer of registration of the Mariner.
This means that not only did the Minister of Marine and Fisheries promise that ships built in the port of Halifax would be registered in that port; but after his attention was called to the fact that one of the ships had been registered in Montreal, one of the officials of the department wrote to the board of trade of that city and promised that the next ship would be registered in Halifax. What do we find? We find that the minister or some one in charge wrote to the people of Halifax because, in answer to a question I put, I find that ships built in Halifax have been registered in Montreal. I could understand the Minister of Marine and Fisheries following a policy of registering ships in the city of Ottawa, because Ottawa is the headquarters of the Government, and the minister would be quite within his right in registering these ships in the capital of Canada. But if these ships are to be registered in any port outside of the city of Ottawa-and I say this for the Pacific coast as well as the Atlantic coast-ships built in Prince Rupert or Vancouver or elsewhere have just as much, if not more, right to be registered in those ports as to be registered in Montreal. Ships built in Halifax, Montreal or Quebec, or other ports should be registered in the ports in which they are built so that, if this is to be the great advertisement the minister says it is to be of Canada in foreign countries, people in foreign lands will he given to understand from the name of the port in which a boat is registered being painted on her stern, that these ships are built, not in one port, the port of Montreal, but in every port on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The minister, therefore, is wrong in deliberately, for some reason, taking the credit away from Halifax, Vancouver or some other port and having the ships registered in the port of Montreal.


Mr. DAVIDSON:: Carried.


William Duff: The hon. member for Digby and Annapolis had better be careful. I remember reading in Hansard an interruption he made ten years ago, and he has not been heard from since. Therefore, he need not interrupt me to-night and call "carried." The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) referred to this whole project as a "painted ship on a painted ocean." That, of course, was very significant, and when I read the remark of the hon. member for Red Deer, I wondered if

he intended to convey two different meanings. It is, of course, good business for some people to have Canadian Government ships, and these ships have to be painted with large quantities of paint. Therefore, I was wondering if the hon. member for Red Deer, when he referred to them as "painted ships on a painted ocean," realized the fact that paint was one of the articles which the ships required in great quantities.
We have ships registered in the port of Montreal, built in Halifax, Vancouver, Three Rivers and other cities throughout Canada, and managed in the city of Toronto. As I said before, if these ships are to be managed properly and if the Government are determined to keep these ships, they should immediately, hand them over to some good reliable men in Halifax, St. John, Montreal, and Vancouver, and allow them to run the ships properly and with the least loss possible.
The latter part of the minister's speech the other night reads something like a valedictory. I was reminded, as I read his concluding remarks, of people who were likely not to remain for very long in their present status or location. , We know that in colleges every year, when students get through their course and are about to go out into the world, on a certain day one of the students is asked to pronounce a valedictory. As I read the minister's concluding remarks, I was strongly reminded that he realizes he is not going to remain in possession of his present portfolio very long, or else that the Government is not going to remain in power very long. Before he concluded, in addition to endeavouring to get some comfort from the speeches of the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), he also tried to convey to certain persons words of commendation. I have no fault to find with that. The minister can say on the floor of this House that officials in his department have done good work in connection with this programme. Perhaps they have, and perhaps they have not. But I do not think, after the experience which we have had in the past two years in regard to this matter, it is necessary for the minister to endeavour to bolster up his case by giving words of encomium to certain persons. I think the people realize that they have been misled with regard to this shipbuilding policy. In two years the country has suffered a loss of something like $60,000,000 owing to deprecia-109
tion, bungling and mismanagement in the operation of these steamers. The question arises: Is this Government going to keep on in this ruinous course? In the interest of the country-and I am not speaking politically; I am endeavouring to show as well as I can the reasons why the Government should halt in their programme-the Government should have endeavoured two years ago to make arrangements with the shipbuilders,' to pay them damages, and to let them build ships on private account; and even at this late date, when there are several ships yet to be built, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries or the Government would be well advised if they would make the officials in charge of this matter go to the builders and make the best possible of a bad bargain. The people of this country do not want either Government-operation or Government-ownership of ships. The experiment has been a failure. Every right thinking man in the country realizes that, and the quicker the Government take such losses and close up this bad deal the better for the country.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, we have listened very patiently for approximately five hours to an hon. gentleman who has launched a particularly vicious attack at the head of the hon. the Minister of Marine (Mr. Ballan-tyne). He speaks, I believe, with the full authority of the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), and of the party that he represents in this House. I assume that because my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition chose him from among all the members who surround him to travel through Canada a few months ago, and at every meeting my hon. friend from Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), who has just taken his seat, delivered a speech very much along the line that he has delivered to the House to-night, a speech characterized by exceedingly wild statements, a speech which if one could say that innuendo were reason, coarse sneers logic, and the circulation of unfounded rumours fact, might perhaps be characterized as a speech. I listened with a great deal of patience, and I asked my hon. friend only one question during the whole five hours he spoke. I asked him the date of a document he was reading, and he immediately turned and read me a brief lecture. I listened for these five hours with patience, and I tried to follow the ramifications of his argument, if I might dignify it by that term, and out



of it all this is what I gleaned so far as any statement that is worthy of attention is concerned: that he himself personally, and speaking also officially for the Opposition, is unqualifiedly opposed to the Government ownership and operation of a merchant marine in Canada. If I am misquoting him or mis-stating the facts in any way, I am always willing to be corrected.


William Duff: You are quite right as far as I am concerned.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am therefore on fairly sound ground to commence with. It is a debateable question, Mr. Chairman, whether any government should enter into the ownership and operation of any great public utility, but it does not follow that because a government does enter into it, that the minister in charge is therefore a crook, or that to use my hon. friend's own phraseology, the minister and the officials of his department know nothing; those were the words he used. I say that because the Government launches into a scheme of that kind, it does not follow that the minister is in any sense guilty of dishonesty or of any dishonourable act. Throughout my hon. friend's speech from beginning to end there was one desire permeating every sentence and argument that he presented, and that was to cast some aspersion on the minister, to try and insinuate that the minister in some way or other, or the members of his staff, were indentified with sinister influences and were despoiling the public treasury of this country.
I am going to do something which I think his speech does not merit, and that is take some of his statements and show to the House their unworthiness, and at the same time the untrustworthiness of his alleged or supposed argument. In the first place, my hon. friend complains, and very bitterly, that certain ships of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine left Canadian ports, went to United States ports, and took on there a cargo for a foreign country. Now he condemns that.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Do not go away. Come back.


William Duff: I will go if I like, and I will stay if I like. I will be back tomorrow.


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend apparently is afraid to remain and listen to any hon. gentleman who attempts to meet his argument. I am going to direct my remarks, in his absence, to his leader because, after all, the leader of a great party has

some responsibility in regard to the statements of his followers, and my hon. friend who has just left the chamber hurriedly has already confirmed my statement that he spoke with the authority of his party. I was saying that my hon. friend complained because the Government ships went to the United States and took on cargoes there for foreign countries. He made the statement this afternoon that a certain ship, the Canadian Pioneer, left Halifax, went to Newport News, from there went to Gibraltar, and took on a cargo of grain for some Mediterranean port. That information was given to the House on his authority as one who knows shipping, and the minister was condemned, held up to ridicule as one who did not know his business. Now, even if his statement were a fact, there would be nothing extraordinary in a ship doing that, because it is quite a common thing for ships operating on the high seas to go in ballast to a point where there is a cargo. But his statement is not a fact in any sense of the term. The fact is this-and we have the official statement from Montreal; we have had lots of time to get it from London since my hon. friend mentioned it-that the Canadian Pioneer on that occasion went to Galveston, Texas, loaded a cargo of grain, took it from there to Greece, there to discharge her cargo and load a full cargo in return. .


John Howard Sinclair: Wil
my hon. friend give me the date of the voyage he is referring to?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am referring tc
exactly the same voyage that my hon. friend from Lunenburg referred to this afternoon.


Mr. GORDON:: What was the date of it'.


Henry Herbert Stevens: April the 2nd.


John Howard Sinclair: Is that the date of the sailing from Canada?


Henry Herbert Stevens: My hon. friend from Antigonish and Guysborough and I have been in this House together for ten years, and I do not think he would charge me, any more than I would charge him, with evasion.


John Howard Sinclair: I
merely wanted to get a fact.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The date is April 2. We have it officially from the office of the Canadian Merchant Marine. The information was secured officially from that source

for the House in view of the extravagant statement made by my hon. friend from Lunenburg. But that is merely incidental to the argument I am making. My hon. friend, after condemning the Government because these vessels went to the United States and took a cargo from there to some place else, next condemns the Government because the ships took business offering in Canadian ports to other Canadian ports. He condemned that because, as he said, it put the local shipping out of business. On the one hand, he condemns the Government for sending the ships out of the country, and, on the other hand, he condemns them for doing business in this country. I merely state that to show how absolutely distorted is his argument. Then, to cap his argument in that regard, he brought forward this point; he said that the reason why the shipping of this country is so hard hit at the present time is because there has been a great reduction in freight rates. That is correct; it is the one correct reason. The shipping of Canada is not necessarily hurt because of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. It is hurt because all over the world the movement of corgoes has stopped. In the last forty years there has perhaps not been a period when trade was so disconcerted throughout the world as it is to-day, when shipping, in the most unforeseen manner, is exceedingly plentiful.
Now, I come to another point raised by the hon. member in respect of which he particularly directed his attack upon the minister. He says that this country is going to be called upon to pay a loss to the Dominion Iron and Steel Co., of $15,000,000, plus damages. I took particular note of his statement, and I know that I am correctly quoting him. He would not accept the statement of the minister that no claims had been filed, and that if any claim is filed it will be a question to be determined in the Exchequer Court as to what the damages should be. Let us examine the facts. The Government and the country need not fear facts; but what we do resent is hon. gentlemen getting up in their places and spreading broadcast throughout the country inuendoes and insinuations that are not based on anything approximating fact. The facts are simply these: During the war period, or at least towards the close of the war, the Government, with the approval of nearly every hon. gentleman opposite, entered into a contract with the Dominion Iron and Steel for ship plates to
start the shipbuilding industry in this country. It was established in order that we might roll these plates here for the shipbuilding industry, which at that time looked as if it might become a permanent one. There was no great criticism of this undertaking. I grant that there was some criticism from the other side, but many hon. gentlemen opposite stood in their places and supported it, and it was regarded as being perfectly proper at the time. The war closed earlier than was expected, and in the process of building the plant more time perhaps was occupied than had been foreseen; but in any case, we came to the point where the Government felt that it was not desirable to take the balance of the order, and for various reasons cancelled it. That contract stands cancelled. Now, up to this time no claims have been made. What are the possibilities? I say that we have no right to indulge in surmise as to what they are, but let us face them frankly, nevertheless. There are two hundred thousand tons of steel plate still undelivered. At the price the Government contracted, this would amount to about $15,000,000. My hon. friend from Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), either with deliberate design to mislead the country, or with a density of ignorance hardly pardonable in an hon. member, jumped to the conclusion that the Dominion Iron and Steel would be entitled to the full $15,000,000 of recompense, plus, as he said, damages. No hon. gentleman who has had any experience whatever in regard to the cancellation of contracts will fail to recognize at once the fallacy of the hon. member's statement. It will readily be realized that a contractor whose contract has been cancelled can claim only the possible profits on his transaction, and can make no claim for undelivered goods. He cannot claim for the whole amount of the contract, but for the established profits on the contract. The full amount in this case is about $16,000,000.


George Gordon: Do you say he could not recover for the balance of his contract, and take proceedings for that?


Henry Herbert Stevens: Certainly not under
circumstances where the contractor himself was a contributing party to the failure.


George Gordon: How did he contribute to this loss?


Henry Herbert Stevens: In some respects he
was derelict in the fulfilment of the terms of the contract; but the point I am getting at is that no claim was made. Now, I



GREAT ORDER FOR EGYPT

[Stage Direction]
B. C. Mills Get Contract for Many Millions of Railway Ties
Two Government Ship Cargoes Leaving Vancouver in April
British Columbia mills to-day commenced to cut an order of eight million feet of ties for the Egyptian State railway. The ties will be shipped late in April to Alexandria on board two steamships of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.
Announcement of the conclusion of the negotiations regarding this order was made this morning by Mr. Arthur E. Salsbury of the Canada Overseas Trading Company.
This order in all probability is a forerunner of further and larger contracts for British Columbia mills, as the Egyptian State railway is understood to be preparing for a large building programme.
The responsibility for success of the negotiations can be equally dividied between Mr. Salsbury, Mr. B. C. Keeley of the C. G. M. M. Limited and Mr. J. G. McConville of the Associated Timber Exporters of British Columbia, together with valuable assistance rendered by Hon. T. D. Pattullo, Agent-General F. C. Wade and Provincial Lumber Commissioner William Turnbull.
I have a word or two further to say in regard to this article. Here is an absolutely new field of operation; it is a business that Canadian lumbermen have not been able to touch hitherto. I know something about it because I had some connection with business of that kind in years gone by. It has been almost impossible for Canadian lumbermen to get into the Indian and Egyptian lumber markets and they have been trying to do so for years. I have in my possession a letter which states that it was largely through the instrumentality of the agent of the Canadian Government Marine office that this order was landed, that the information in the office, and the official's knowledge of the business led to the landing of that order and the opening of a new trade, the forerunner, as has been well said, of large orders. That is exactly what we want. It is exactly one of the things that we have been endeavouring to bring about in Canada for years. I know that on the Pacific coast one of the difficulties of the Canadian export business' in lumber has been the shipping ring at San Francisco, and which it has been impossible to break. I am told by those who intimately know the business that the so called North Atlantic Shipping Ring was not in it with the San Francisco concern. I could go at length into the operations of this ring but I will not do so to-night. I will simply state for the benefit of hon. members present the fact that during recent years-[DOT] during the last ten or twelve years-the export of lumber from British Columbia fell off at an alarming rate until it had almost disappeared. Now, through the instrumentality of the Government Marine Service, we are making rapid strides. I should also say through the instrumentality of the Robert Dollar Company-that is now established in Vancouver instead of San Francisco

through the instrumentality of these two agencies we are making tremendous strides in re-establishing our lumber trade on the Pacific. In addition I have this further information-that the Canadian Government ships on the Pacific are going out fully loaded. I grant you that the times are getting very hard, and it may be that some of the ships in the near future will not have cargoes: but during the past year down to within a month ago the Canadian Government ships were carrying full cargoes out of the port of Vancouver. This, I mention as a sample argument
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in favour of the Government's programme -the programme being not only for the purpose of the development of trade, and the development of the shipbuilding industry- which has been of tremendous value to Canada-but also as as a compliment, shall I say, to the Canadian National Railway System. What we are faced with is this: By such attacks as the hon. gentleman made during the last five hours the Canadian Government ownership of railways and of marine will be damned before it has had an opportunity to establish itself. We all know that it is a new venture. In some respects you might term it an experiment. In some respects, perhaps, it will not show the result that we hoped for, but by the statement which has been presented by the minister we at least can say that it has shown an operating profit.
My hon. friend attempted to lead the House and the public to believe that he had discovered something when he brought forward the fact that the Government merchant marine had not paid interest on capital. Why, the hon. minister in his statement said so. He said that the balance sheet showed an operating profit, and he gave figures which are beyond all per-adventure. There they are, and they are correct. They have not been disturbed in the slightest iota by this five-hour harangue of the hon. member for Lunenburg. He gave the House not one scintilla of new information. The Minister of Marine stated when he made his announcement to the House-I have his statement here-that the balance sheet did not provide' for interest on capital, but that the net profit of some $700,000 odd would show a return of about two per cent on the capital cost. I submit that where you have that profit on these ships, some of them running only a few months and few of them running for more than a year, that that is not a bad showing in face of the complete collapse of the shipping market. I ask hon. gentlemen, particularly my hon. friends of the Agrarian party-who are not, I think, ill-disposed towards Government ownership, but who have looked askance at this particular venture-to weigh carefully their words and arguments before they condemn the showing made by the Canadian Government marine in the brief time it has been in operation.
My hon. friend's solution is to dispose of these vessels " by sale or otherwise." That was his intelligent suggestion to the committee a few moments ago after speaking about four and a half hours. He said,

" Now what about a solution? Dispose ot these ships by sale or otherwise." I submit that that is not a very helpful proposal. If it is the official declaration of the criticism of hon. gentlemen opposite, made through the mouth of the responsible representative of that party, then it is of very little help to the Government and to the country in solving this problem. "Dispose of the ships by sale or otherwise." Suppose we take the hon. gentleman at his word and, as I said a moment ago, dignify a statement of that kind as argument, if you please. He added further, that the existing contracts should be cancelled and the ships disposed of by sale or otherwise. What does that mean? It means loss and ruin to the yards that are now building the balance of this shipping programme- a programme launched in good faith, a programme aproved of by my hon. friend from Maisonneuve, a programme which he supported-not in war time, as he said the other day, but in peace time as a desirable peace programme. My hon. friend is sitting there and I want him to listen to me. He stated that it was a desirable programme in peace time. The other day he made an attack on the minister and said that he was in favour of it in war time, but not in peace time. This programme was endorsed by my hon. friends opposite as well as by hon. gentlemen on this side as a desirable programme. I venture to say that all of us perhaps would have acted differently if we could have seen all that was going to happen; but we did the best we could in the light of the information we had at that time and on the prospects which were in view. Now it does not become my hon. friend from Maisonneuve to join in such criticisms as his colleague has made and attack the Government because in peace time they carried on this programme. I say that if the Government followed their advice it would mean loss and ruin to these yards that had heavy commitments, and also to their subcontractors in this country who also had heavy commitments. You cannot build a 10,000-ton ship in a day. There must be preparation, you must buy your plates and angles and machinery from all parts of the country, and much of it out of the country, orders have to be given months and months ahead, and to undertake the work of building two, four, six or eight of these ships is a tremendous financial commitment. Not only that, but sub-contracts are let to other business firms, and it would mean the ruination of these firms, too. It would

at once create a panic and throw into the unemployment market of to-day tens of thousands of men, not only the men directly operating at these plants but those operating with these other concerns subsidiary to them and also connected with the contracts.
This is a practical question. It is not a question that we can toss aside and say: Cancel the contracts and sell the ships. My hon. friend from Lunenburg speaks of this matter as if he were dealing with something out of a ten-cent store. We are dealing with a programme which has been debated in this House for four sessions-debated by hon. gentlemen on both sides. Some of them, including notably my hon. friend from Red Deer and one or two others took exception to it, but the great bulk of opinion on both sides of the House was behind the venture, I think we all felt that it was a heavy responsibility, but there was a feeling that it was the right thing to do, and we did it. Now I say it does not lie well in the mouths of these hon. gentlemen to round on the Government because at this juncture there happens to be a universal collapse in the trade of the world, creating temporarily a condition of which it is difficult to exactly foresee the outcome.
I counsel both the minister and the House that we should hold on to these assets. He is an unwise man who will sell out his plant when there are no buyers. It is a mighty poor business principle for a manufacturing industry when things become dead and the market is upset to say, "Well, here is my plant. I will sell it at any cost." That is a very vicious principle. What is the principle that a sane business man will follow under such conditions? He will conserve these assets, realizing that this particular slump which we are now passing through cannot possibly continue for any lengthy period, and that the time will come when these ships will in all probability not only earn a profit on operating expenses but pay a dividend as well.
Now, I want to say, I think the minister as well as every hon. gentleman will agree with me,-and I say it not for the sake of escaping captious criticism on the other side-that we must be prepared to write off a severe loss on the capital cost of these ships. It is quite true that the prices paid when these contracts were let is in excess of those now obtaining; that is obvious; but to say that we must write off $150 a ton out of this year's expenses is manifestly absurd. We must devise a scheme to nurse this project along, to conserve the assets, and to so administer our property that it will be operated as successfully as possible.
Another consequence of abandoning this project would be the repudiation by the Government of all its contracts entered into in good faith by both parties, and entered into with the approval of this House. Now, in case I should be tripped up and be told that the contracts in detail did not come before this House, I will at once recognize that point, but I say that the policy was adopted in good faith and approved generally by hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House. I have not the figures, and I do not think it is necessary for me to state them in detail, but in the United States the Government absorbed losses running into hundreds of millions of dollars through cancellation of contracts. Their shipbuilding programme was not carried out with a business ability at all comparable to the business ability displayed by our Marine and Fisheries Department. This Government's shipbuilding programme was carried out in a manner that puts to shame the programme carried out by some other countries. Now, if we create a similar situation and the Government cancel the contracts we will have to also absorb great losses. I think that is a point we might consider. I am not prepared to support it, but I do say that it is a point that hon. gentlemen might advance -whether or not it is advisable for the Government to cancel the contracts, pay the loss, and let the thing go. I submit that that would be unwise; our loss will be less in the long run if we carry out these contracts, accept the ships, and see the programme through. If the contracts were cancelled there would not only be the loss in dollars and cents, but there would be an indirect loss, and there would be also the moral effect resulting from the repudiation by the Government of its contracts at this time. These are serious problems, problems that we cannot lightly deal with or thrust aside.
The hon. member for Lunenburg in his speech attacked the minister because of his statement that one of the attractive features of his programme was the supplying of work to the un-employed, particularly to returned soldiers. Now, I want to endorse heartily the minister's view in that regard. The minister did not say that was the sole object of his shipbuilding programme. He did say, however, that that was one of its objects-and it was. I know one yard in Vancouver that employed over
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twelve hundred returned soldiers; indeed, it is employing them to-day, though perhaps not quite so large a number. Another yard employed about 450 returned soldiers, so that some 1,500 returned soldiers were employed in these two yards at Vancouver alone, to say nothing of the number indirectly employed. The hon. member for Lunenburg took the minister to task, however, I thought it did not very well become the hon. gentleman to cast aspersions on any policy having anything to do with returned soldiers in this country. I am sorry that my hon. friend is not in his seat. I am sorry that he left the chamber -left it, I think, because he knew there was something coming to him.
Andrew Ross McMaster: Oh no, he left the chamber to correct the report of his speech.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Well, that is a good idea; I hope he doctors it up pretty well. But I wish he were in his seat, because if he were I would remind him that it was hardly wise for him to meddle with any question involving returned soldiers or the war. It is very doubtful whether the hon. member for Lunenburg would have secured his seat in this House had he not distributed promises of exemption to young men in his county and counselled them to defy the law of Canada and not to register and report. Not only that, but he counselled young men also to break their parole who had been apprehended because they were defaulters. That, I say, is a pretty serious thing. The hon.' gentleman has during the last four sessions been handing out all manner of insults to members on this side who dared to open their mouths, who asked him even a civil question; has cast aspersions on the Minister of Marine nearly every time he has been in the House; has been seeking to convey to the minds of the public the impression that some underhand work was going on. I say it does not become an hon. gentleman who won his seat in the House in the way that he did to indulge in any such reflections on other hon. gentlemen. I am sorry that he is not here. He may have gone up to revise the report of his speech, but it has been an act of common courtesy for many years in this House for an hon. gentleman to remain in his seat and take a reply to remarks that he has made. In this case the hon. gentleman made a speech lasting five hours; and I hope that my hon. friends opposite who are friends of his will give 
him a lesson in what is due to this House in the way of common courtesy.
The hour is late, Mr. Chairman, and it is useless for me to go on with any further remarks. I do not know that any good can come from a further analysis of the statement of the hon. member for Lunenburg. But I should like to say that we ought to approach this question of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine with a patriotic desire to make good, mot with the idea of offering captious cricitism or of saying, in effect: Oh well, you are in that mess now, you can carry the burden. I ask the hon. member for Maisonneuve (Mr. Lemieux), whom I have known quite intimately for the last ten years and who is generally pretty fair, to revise his rather severe criticisms of a few days ago and turn back to the Hansard report of his speech of only two years ago, after the armistice, when he made what I considered to be a very fair statement to this House. I would ask the member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) if he were in his seat; the member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Vien), and one or two others-my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) and several of those hon. gentlemen who went into this business with their eyes open just as we did and knew exactly what they were doing-I ask them to assist in arriving at some sane solution of this problem, a solution involving not the scrapping of the whole scheme, but the upholding of this policy until it has an opportunity of demonstrating its value to Canada. Great Britain's supremacy of the sea was built upon just such a beginning as this. She made sacrifices; she paid amounts enormously in excess of what she really needed to have paid the Dutch for shipping at that time. But she established the policy of carrying her own goods in her own bottoms and passed very rigorous laws in support of it. The United States, with less success, has tried to do the same thing. As for Canada, about forty years ago or thereabouts we did occupy ' a very favourable position, as my hon. friend from Guysborough knows, so far as shipping is concerned; when wooden ships were more fashionable than steel we had a very high place in the shipping of the world. We lost that position because of the complete change in the type of shipping. Now we are launching into shipping in a modern way, and I again invite hon. gentlemen opposite to join in constructive criticism having in view the one object of making good the venture, in the inception

of which they joined us, of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.


John Howard Sinclair: The
hour is late, and there is no hope that this debate can be closed to-night. I do not think it is advisable that the minister should endeavour to push a large item like this through with but a short discussion, particularly when so many hon. members are anxious to express their views with regard to this important question. The minister will not sleep any the sounder for having heard what I shall say, and I suggest that we adjourn the discussion until some future day when it is convenient for him to bring it up again.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The . hour is not yet late, and I think all hon. members will admit that on this side we have been very patient in listening for some five hours to the hon. member for Lunenburg. I think it is only fair to ask the committee to sit a while longer and see if we cannot make some progress.


John Howard Sinclair: Of
course, if my hon. friend wants a lengthy debate we shall have to try to accommodate him, but I do not think he will be able to pass this item to-night.
I listened with much interest to the speech of the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Stevens), but I regret that he found it necessary to resort to personal abuse of the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff). I have sat with the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) for a good many years, and I think this is the first time I have heard him depart from the usual amenities of debate in the way that he has done to-night. The conduct of the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) is a matter for himself to deal with, and he is well able to look after himself. If the hon. member for Vancouver Centre will give him an opportunity of discussing his record in the war and placing it opposite my hon. friend's record in the war, the hon. member for Lunenburg will, I am sure, have no objection to undertaking the task.
We are all very much indebted to the hon. member for Lunenburg for the mass of facts that he has placed before us tonight.- We may not agree with all that he said, but he quoted many authorities that we will not question. He has given us figures that we are at liberty to examine and criticise; he has given a great deal of study to this question, and I am sure the House should feel indebted to the hon. member for Lunenburg for the careful way in which he has gone into this question and the large collection of important facts which he has placed before us.
My only excuse for intervening in this debate is the gravity of the situation that faces the country in its financial affairs. It has been admitted that we are building ships now at a much higher price than the ships are worth when they are completed. The hon. member for Vancouver has admitted that; he has admitted that we are having to write off a very large amount of our capital cost of those ships, and it is an extraordinary situation that we are voting more money and going on building new ships, knowing that when we have them completed and have paid an average of $192 a ton for them, they will not be worth anything like that figure in the market. That is the situation, and it seems to be very unbusinesslike that we should proceed with a programme like that, with the fact staring us in the face that when we get through with it, our ships will not be worth more than perhaps 25 per cent of what we are spending on them.
The entrance of the Government into this programme is a different matter altogether. The war was on at the time, and there was a certain amount of excuse, but I think I can show that this programme of shipbuilding was not a war measure. The minister, in his speech the other day, stated that this programme started as a war measure. I think I can show that it was not a war measure, and I wish to take issue with my hon. friend on that statement. To begin with it came too late to be of any service. The eleventh of June is the date that I have as the date that the first keel was laid, and the first launch took place on the 23rd November, 1918, or about twelve days after the armistice, so that not a single ship built under this programme of $70,000,000 was of any service whatever in the war. But that is not all. Shipbuilding was going on at the time in Canada. The Government was urged by members of the Opposition during the early years of the war, to embark on a shipbuilding programme. Those of us who were in the House in 1914, 1915 and, I think, 1916, will remember that hon. members on this side of the House frequently drew the attention of the Government to the fact that British ships were being sunk at an enormous rate by German submarines and that Canada should do something towards helding Great Britain, helping the Admiralty, in that matter. The Government,

however, took no steps during those years, but I think it was in 1916 that the Munitions Board took up the question of building ships in Canada. They started to build ships in Canadian yards, and in 1917, if I remember rightly, every shipyard in Canada was busy building ships for the Munitions Board. It was absolutely unnecessary for my hon. friend to enter upon this expenditure at that time, because the yards were all busy for the Munitions Board under the authority of the Imperial Government, and his advent into the business only brought about confusion, because it confused the good work that was being carried on by the Munitions Board. My hon. friend can hardly say, considering that fact, that his advent into this business was a war measure. If he had stayed out of the business altogether, the Munitions Board would have gone on with the work; they would have kept Canadian yards busy, and every ship that would have been constructed by the Munitions Board would have been at once handed over to the Admiralty for use in the war. If my hon. friend had been successful in building even one ship before the war closed, his ship would also have been handed over to the Admiralty for use in the war. It made no difference to the Admiralty whether a ship was built by the Munitions Board or by my hon. friend's department. Consequently, the excuse that the war had something to do with starting this programme will hardly hold when we remember the circumstances under which this programme commenced.
The second point to which my hon. friend referred-I am speaking now of the speech delivered by the minister the other day- was that the ships were necessary on account of our owning the railways; that is, owing to the fact that we have a large railway system consisting of some 22,000 miles of railway in this country, we ought to have these ships on the ocean to carry our traffic. That argument is not sound. The seven seas are covered with vessels that are quite ready and willing to compete for the traffic that is carried to the sea by Canadian railways. It is not at all necessary that the railways should embark on a programme of shipbuilding and shipowning. The railways of Great Britain, the railways of the continent of Europe and many railways in the United States have not embarked on the building of freight vessels. Some of them have fast passenger vessels, and if my hon. "friend had introduced a programme of putting
[Mr. Sinclair.}
fast passenger vessels on the Atlantic or on some parts of the oceans connected with his railways, there would be a good deal to be said in favour of it. But that is not his programme; his programme is building what we ordinarily characterize as slow tramp vessels. I notice, in looking over the list, that about eleven knots is the best speed of the vessels he has had built, and some of them are slower than that. There is no justification for building those vessels in order to carry traffic that is carried over our Canadian railways, because as I said before, the ocean is covered with ships belonging to private companies, ready and willing to compete for that traffic and at a lower rate than that at which my hon. friend can carry the freight in Government ships. These great railway systems in the United States and Europe that have no freight vessels connected with their systems have found no inconvenience in that regard; they are able to make arrangements for any traffic that they have to carry. If the minister delivers a shipload of wheat in the elevators at any part of the coast of Canada, all he has to do is to go to the market in New York or London, and give his broker an opportunity of getting the lowest rate that is going for the ships that are looking for that kind of traffic. He will find that in that way he will get a lower rate.


Mr. NICHOLSON (East Algoma) :: If the principle enunciated that it is unnecessary to have ships in connection with the National system of railways, is correct how was it that the former Government in entering into the contract with the Grand Trunk for the operation of the Transcontinental and the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific insisted as a part of the contract that the Grand Trunk or the Grand Trunk Pacific must construct ships for operation on both oceans in conjunction with the railways?


John Howard Sinclair: I
understood those to be passenger ships. If my hon. friend looks into the matter I think he will find that there was an attempt made at that time to have a line of passenger ships just the same as the Canadian Pacific Railway has.


Donald Nicholson: How is it then that the Canadian Pacific finds it necessary to operate a fleet of between 60 and 70 ships of all kinds, but largely freight ships, on both oceans?


John Howard Sinclair: The Canadian Pacific has a fleet of ships many of which I believe, were first built as passenger ships. Some of the old passenger ships, I understand are now being used as freight vessels. But that makes no difference to my argument. My argument is that a railway system does not need ships at all and that argument has found favour with the great railway systems of the United States and of Europe. Whatever the Canadian Pacific or any particular railway system might have done, my point is that it is absolutely unnecessary for a great railway system to have ships on the ocean to carry their traffic, because there are already so many ships ready to compete for that traffic at a low rate. Why do not the great railway systems in the United States and Europe put their money into the building of ships like we have done? It is simply because they have not the money to spare. They need the money for the operation of their railways, and dear knows, we need it for the operation of our railways.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Is it not because the Interstate Commerce Commission will not permit American railways to give a through rail and water rate which is just the opposite to the system in Canada?


John Howard Sinclair: That is a comparatively recent regulation in the United States.	-


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh no, it has been in force for years.


John Howard Sinclair: There were great railway systems in the United States before that regulation came into effect, but they did not adopt the principle that has been adopted by this Government, of putting large sums of money into ships to be operated in connection with the railway. The Canadian Pacific have done so, but I think you will find if you inquire from men who know most about the Canadian Pacific Railway, that their shipbuilding programme has not been their most profitable venture. If you will look at the report of the Canadian Pacific Railway that was issued a few days ago, you will find that they have a capital investment of something like $43,000,000 and if you look at the profit they made, and allow for sinking fund and interest on their money, you will find that the shipping end has not been a very profitable venture for that compeny, any more than it has for the Canadian Government.


John Dowsley Reid: All of these Government ships were built on account of war conditions. What would my hon. friend think of a suggestion of this kind; that a number of these vessels be operated permanently in connection with the Intercolonial or the Canadian National Railway system in carrying coal from Sydney and the lower provinces to Halifax and St. John's in the* winter, and to Montreal and Quebec and even as far as Toronto in the summer?


John Howard Sinclair: My
hon. friend appears to think that I would be influenced by the fact that the coal comes from Nova Scotia.


John Dowsley Reid: Oh, no, what I meant
was that in that way we could bring the coal cheaper than if we had to pay a private steamship line a profit.


John Howard Sinclair: The
way to work up a coal trade with foreign countries is to get cheap transportation, and my view is that you will never get that by Government ships. Government operation of railways has not given us cheap transportation, either here or in the United States or Great Britain, and the history of Government operation of ships will be the same. If we want to deliver coal to Mediterranean ports, as we had an opportunity of doing last year if the Government had not interfered and put an embargo on the export of coal, we must have cheap transportation to the Mediterranean.


John Dowsley Reid: That is not the question I asked. I am speaking of bringing coal to Montreal and Quebec and even Ontario. What would the hon. member think of making these Government ships part of the Intercolonial system and using them for bringing coal to Montreal and Quebec, and Toronto perhaps, instead of bringing the coal from the United States.


John Howard Sinclair: It is
rather strange that when the programme for the, Canadian ships was drawn up, which the minister announced to the House on March 29, my hon. friend the Minister of Railways did not make that suggestion to his colleague. The ships of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine are now travelling on distant voyages all over the world, to India, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia, It is strange my hon. friend did not induce his colleague to include in his programme the bringing of coal up the St. Lawrence. I do not know whether that is practicable or not. There

are some reasons why I would think it was not. I question very much if the ships would do for the coal trade. It was discovered in trying to promote the coal trade between Nova Scotia and Montreal that you must have specially built ships that can he easily discharged, with large hatches, and with a great many appliances that are lacking in the Government ships. The Government ships, in the first place, are not economical. Too many of them are small ships. I find that about 30 of them are under 5^000 tons. Now it is an axiom in the freight business in these days that to make a commercial success of carrying a large and heavy cargo like coal or lumber, or any other product that requires a good deal of room, you must have a ship of at least 8,000 or 10,000 tons. If you consult the managers of the Dominion Coal Company they will tell you that the small ships they were using in the early days did not pay, and that the ship that has a chance to pay in that sort of trade is a 10,000-ton ship.
The Minister of Marine must have taken the advice of some marine engineer, I suppose, but it is a puzzle to me why he built so many small ships of 3,000 or 4,000 or
5,000	tons, when he intended to use them for ocean trade and expected them to pay their way. It is a fact that something like about thirty of the ships being built under the Government programme are too small to be a commercial success in any trade of that kind. They are good enough to travel around in as yachts, with a little freight, which is all that is offering in these times when freight is scarce. But if you want to make money, if you want to carry on a business that will pay its way, then you must have larger ships than my hon. friend has built. Now, I spoke of the reason that was given for the ownership of railways, and the reason that my hon. friend gave the other day for the building of these ships was that it was advancing the export trade of the Dominion. As a matter of fact, is it building up the export trade? It does not seem to be successful in any case, because the balance of trade has been increasing against us during the whole time that my hon. friend has been going on with this programme. I know he carries a certain amount of goods away from Canadian ports, but these goods could be carried in other vessels as cheaply as he is carrying them. His advent into the Newfoundland trade was referred to in this debate, and we may consider that phase of the subject for a moment. There were no fewer than four private lines

carrying on trade between the Maritime Provinces and the island of Newfoundland last December. Freight was scarce, and none of them were making money. They had to cross to Newfoundland with half cargoes, and in that state of affairs, with these four private lines struggling to buy coal, pay wages, and keep their ships afloat, my hon. friend comes in and enters his ships into competition with these four lines. He does not reduce the freight, so far as I have heard; he charges the same rate of freight as is charged by the private lines. The effect of his entrance into the business there has simply been to make it unprofitable, not only for himself, but for all concerned, and that certainly is not developing trade. Is my hon. friend developing Canadian trade? If he is, should we not expect to find the balance of trade in our favour? I want to read a short paragraph from a newspaper that generally supports the programme of my hon. friend; I refer to the Financial Post. Here is what the paper says:
During: 1919, our surplus of exports was $151,037,000 while in 1920 we have actually imported $151,145,000 more than we have exported, a change for the worse of over $300,000,000, and a complete reversal of our trade position.
Now, that is the result of my hon. friend's operations in connection with steamships. The Minister, with his forty or fifty odd ships, has been trying to develop our export trade, but he has developed it in the wrong way, in one year, to the tune of $300,000,000. That is the report we get from the blue books and from the press. If a Canadian merchant has a cargo to ship, it is the easiest thing in the world to get ships. All he has to do is to ask for one and he will get it at the lowest rate. He can get ships at a lower rate than the minister can build or run one, so that our export trade would be developed just as well as if my hon. friend were out of the business altogether. The minister has given us a list of the routes to which he intends to send his ships during the coming year. He informs us that he is developing new routes of trade, and the first on the list is Liverpool. Did the hon. gentleman never hear of Liverpool before? Is that a new route? For the last hundred years ships from my province have been going there carrying Canadian exports, and they ar& doing it still. But my hon. friend gives Liverpool as one of these places; then he gives London, Cardiff, Havana and Australia as new routes. Is any one of them new? I question if my hon. friend can find a port in any part of the world, that is

to say, an important commercial port, where Canadian ships have not already been. Why, in the province from which I come, the people are as familiar with the names of Shanghai, Negasaki, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as they are with the port of Montreal, for during the last fifty or sixty, or seventy years sailors of that province have been going to these places.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I do not want to interrupt the hon. member, but J think he will understand that my statement was that these were new routes opened up for the Canadian Government Merchant Marine. He will give me credit, I think, for knowing that these ports are old established ones, and are well known.


John Howard Sinclair: Where are the new ones?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: If you read Hansard you will see.


John Howard Sinclair: I have the list but I cannot see a single port that has not been frequently visited by Canadian ships in the last fifty or sixty years. I have observed in the press frequently the statement that my hon. friend was opening new ports. The newspapers that are writing up his shipping programme are very kind to him and represent him as a sort of Christopher Columbus, going over the world finding new places for Canada's export trade. I do not want to detract from the honours of the hon. gentleman, but he cannot find any new port in this list, any port that I would call new, at any rate. I read in a Canadian newspaper last autumn the statement that my hon. friend had sent one of his ships up the river Platte to Buenos Aires, and it was stated as a wonderful thing that for the first time in the history of Canada a Canadian ship had carried a Canadian cargo to this place. A Canadian captain happened to be in my office at the time and I read the statement to him. He was amazed, and the remark he made was that some years ago, as master of a ship, he carried a cargo of lumber from St. John to Buenos Aires, and that when he arrived at that port, there were no fewer than ten Canadian ships at anchor there, all having carried cargoes from this country. These statements are made in newspapers by men living a thousand miles from the sea who do not know what has happened at Canadian seaports in the years that have gone. My hon. friend has not so far been successful in developing Canadian trade to any extent.


Mr. BUTTS:: Has any vessel from Guysborough ever carried a cargo to Buenos Aires?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Never mind him.


John Howard Sinclair: If my
hon. friend really wants to develop trade, he will find that private vessels can carry cargoes as cheaply as his vessels can, or more cheaply. My hon. friend claims that he made a profit in the year 1920. My hon. friend from Lunenburg dealt with that question, but I want to refer to it very briefly. I am not going to enter into details about my hon. friend's figures, but he admits himself, in the statement he presented to the House the other day, that his capital account at the end of the year stood at $53,687,649. The question is, does his balance sheet show a profit? Before we speak of a profit we have to provide for sinking fund and interest-those are the two things that we must make provision for before we make a profit. Shipowners do not consider they make a profit at all until they lay aside enough to pay for sinking fund and for interest. Has my hon. friend complied with that rule, well known to business men everywhere, in regard to the shipping industry? I do not profess to know a great deal about the shipping industry, but I know a little. I know it is the practice of business men, who put their money into ships, to charge five per cent as a sinking fund, and it is necessary to charge five per cent if you expect to come out at the end without going bankrupt. One of the most perishable things in the world is a ship, and a steel ship is also perishable. If the greatest care is not taken it will rust very quickly. Government officers are not apt to sit up all night looking after these things, and if you do not take the greatest care in painting a ship and taking the rust off, the hull of the ship will go in a very short time. The machinery cannot last very long anyway, and the boiler will have to be renewed every ten years. In order to do this you must have a sinking fund. If you are going to renew your ship at the end of twenty years, or whatever period she lasts, you must have a sinking fund of at least five per cent. Taking that principle to start with my hon. friend says he spent $53,687,649. The depreciation at five per cent would amount to $2,685,324.
What about the capital? Where did the capital come from? It did not come down from the skies without anybody being responsible; the capital came from the Canadian people. Every dollar of it was borrowed from the Canadian people at five


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Not a cent.


Lucien Cannon: He never would.


John Howard Sinclair: I question if he would put his own money in this venture.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: He is too poor.


John Howard Sinclair: What position does he occupy? He is trustee for the Canadian people. If I understand anything about the doctrine of trusts, it is that a trustee has to be more careful about trust money than about his own. That doctrine does not seem to influence my hon. friend at all. He does not seem to think there is anything wrong in taking this trust money now and building ships at the rate of $192 deadweight ton
1-S36

when he knows that when those ships are launched they will not be worth more than a quarter of that amount. It is hard to say how far this may go. We are committed to an outlay of $70,000,000 I suppose to complete our present contracts. But, as I have pointed out, last year we actually lost four or five million dollars in our shipping operations, if we allow depreciation and interest on our money, and we will lose a great deal more next year; indeed, instead of $70,000,000 it may easily become $100,000,000. I would impress upon my hon. friend the importance of looking into this matter and applying his best business ability to its solution. Now, if my hon. friend is willing that we should adjourn this debate to some more Christian hour, when we will not all be so tired, I should like to get his consent. I have a few more remarks that I may wish to make, but I need not make them to-night.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: I am quite willing to agree to the request of my hon. friend if he and his colleagues will allow one small item to go through. I have seen the leader of the Opposition, and he has kindly consented to it. I would ask the committee to revert to item 206, ocean and river service, examination of masters and mates, $20,000.
Ocean and River Service-examination of masters and mates, $20,000.


Lucien Cannon: That has nothing to do with pilots?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is the explanation of the increase of $2,000?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: It is the usual increase of the civil government Estimates and other incidental expenses.


Mr. PARENT:: Are pilots interested in the item of masters and mates?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
On the motion of Hon. Mr. Ballantyne for the adjournment of the House:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is my hon. friend in a position to inform us what business the Government will take up tomorrow?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: The business for to-morrow will be the motion for the appointment of the special committee on Government Railways and Shipping, and any Estimates which we are entitled to take up.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 12.26 a.m. Friday.



APPENDIX

[Stage Direction]
[The tables comprising the answer referred to on page 1673 are given below. The answer was to the following series of questions asked by Hon. Charles Murphy (Russell):
1.	What rates are paid now as compared with 1916 on Canadian National Railways. ner month, per day, or per hour, for the following .classes of employees:- Engineers, Firemen, Conductors, Trainmen, Shop Mechanics, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shed Men, Trackmen, Bridge and Building Men?
2.	Have there been any particular changes since 1916 in working conditions,-such as length of working day, overtime regulations, etc,, which further increased compensation over changes in rates? If so, what are such changes for each of the classes named in question number one?
3.	What would be the comparative monthly compensation as between now and 1916 paid each to engineers, firemen, conductors, and trainmen (allowing average overtime conditions), in the following classes of service:-Through passenger run, Local passenger run. Through freight service, Local freight service.
4.	What are the monthly earnings as compared with 1916 for the following classes of employees working full regular working hours:-Shop Mechanics, Carmen, Agents and Operators. Freight Shed Men, Trackmen, Bridge-and Building Men?
5.	Wh'at would be the monthly earnings of the classes of employees named in question 4 if required to work the same regular working hours as existed in 1916 at present rates as compared with the rates paid in 1916?
6.	Do any of the classes of employees named in the foregoing questions receive any compensation or privileges in addition to their rates of pay, such as commissions, free or reduced rental, living accommodation, fuel, light, transportation, etc? If so, in a general way what are such concessions and what are they valued at in individual cases?
Hon. J. D. Reid (Minister of Railways and Canals) in reply to the foregoing questions furnished the statements which follow.]
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916 Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
Qcestion No. 1
Engineers- Passenger.
Per month
Per Day
(Minimum Wage)
	(See Remarks)		
S cts. S cts.	$ cts $	cts.1921	166-40 to 176 80	6 40 to	6.801916	104.78 to 116.74	3.74 to	4 49
Per Hour
Remarks
$ cts. $ cts. 1.28 to 1.36
37-4c.to 44-9c
Based on 100 miles or less, 5 hours or less to constitute a day (20 miles per hour).
Based on 100 miles or less, 10 hours or less to constitute a day (10 miles per hour).
Note.-As the average speed of Passenger trains exceeds 20 miles per hour the difference between the 20 miles per hour in 1921 and 10 miles per hour in 1916 mostly affects cost of Branch Lines .service and arbitrary allowances. In Branch Lines service the elapsed time at 20 miles per hour may at times exceed the miles run and in such cases the allowance is increased through the change from a 10 mile per hour basis in 1916 to a 20 mile per hour basis in 1921.
[Stage Direction]


Question No. 1
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916 Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
Per Month
Per Day
Per Hour
Remarks
Engineers-Con.	(Minimum Wage) (See Remarks) $ cts. $ cts.
Freight	1921	185.12 to 207.48
1916	114.14 to 126.10
Way Freight..1921	198.64 to 221.00
1916	126.62 to 133.90
Yard	1921	183.04 to 187.20
1916	100.10 to 107.90
Firemen-	
Passenger	1921	124.80 to 137.28
1916	59.80 to 72.80
Freight	1921	137.28 to 160.16
1916	65 00 to 78.00
Way Freight. .1921	147.68 to 170.56
1916	68.80 to 82.90
Yard	1921	145.60 to 148.72
1916	61.10 to 65.00
Conductors-	
Passenger	1921	210 00
1916	135.00
Freight	1921	167.44
1916	104.00
Way Freight. .1921	180.96
1916	117.00
Yard	1921	180.96
1916	93.60 to 104.00
Brakemen-	
Passenger	1921	150.00
1916	76.50
Freight	1921	133.12
1916	69.42
Way Freight. .1921	143.52
1916	78.00
Yard	1921	168.48
1916	85.80
Baggagemen ..1921	154.80
Passenger	1916	82.50
Agents and Operators	
Agents	1921	$135.00 to $238.00
1916	$ 66.00 to $175.00
Operators	1921	$125.00 to $170.00
1916	$ 60.00 to $ 90.00
Freight Shed Men-	
Foremen	1921	$155.00
1916	$ 90.00
Checkers	1921	$127.50 to $141.50
1916	$ 60.00 to $ 65.00
Stowers and	
Loaders	1921	$116.48 to $119.60
1916	$57.20
ruckers and	
Porters	1921	$110.24 to $114.40
1916	$54.00
Assistant Shed	
Foremen.... 1921	$145.00 to $150.00
1916	$80.00
$ cts. $	cts.	$ cts. $	cts7.12 to	7.98	89c	to 99	[DOT]6c.4.12 to	4.85	41.2c	to 48	.5c.7.64 to	8.50	95 -5c	to$l.	06-24.51 to	5.15	45- lc	to 51	[DOT]5c.7.04 to	7.20	0-88c	to 0-	90c.3.85 to	4.15	38-5c	to 41	[DOT]5c.4.80 to	5.28	0-66c	to	66c.2.30 to	2.80	0-23c	to	28c.5.28 to	6.16	0-66c	to	77c.2.50 to	3.00	0.25c	to	30c.5.68 to	6.50	0-71c	to	82c.2.65 to	3.15	26 -5c	to 31	[DOT]5c.5.60 to	5.72	0-70c	to 714c.	2.35 to	2.50	23 -5c	to	25c.7.00	93c.	4.50	60c.	6.44	805c..	4.00	40c.	6.96	87c.	4.50	45c.	6.96	87c.	3.60 to	4.00	36c	to	40c.5 00	66 - 6c	2.55	34c.	5.12	64c.	2.67	26*7c.	5.52	69c.	3 00	30c.	6.48	81c.	3.30 to 3	70	33c	to 37c.	5.16	68c.	2.75	36-6e.	$5.19 to $9.15	65c	to $1	.14$2.54 to $6.73	25*4 to 67	3c.$4.80 to $	6.54	60c.	to 81-	7c.$2.31 to $3.46	231	to 34	6c.$5.96	74-5c.	$3.46	34-6c.	$4.90 to $5.44	61-2	to 68c.	$2.31 to $2.50	23-1	to 25c.	$4.48 to $4.60	56e.	to 57-	5c.$2.20	22c.	$4.24 to $[DOT]	4.40	53c.	to 55c.	$2.10	21c.	$5.58 to $5.77	69-7	to 72-	lc.$3.08	30-8c.	
Note.-Rates per month all based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Note.-Rate per month all based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
1921-basic day- 8 hours.
1916-basic day-10 hours.
Based on Monthly Wage guarantee.
Based on Monthly wage guarantee.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
1921-Basic day- 8 hours.
1916-Basic day-10 hours.
Based on monthly wage guarantee.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Rate per month based on guarantee of 2,600 miles.
Based on Monthly Wage guarantee.
Rates per hour 1921 based on 8 hour day
Rates per hour 1916 based on 10 hour day
Rates per hour 1921 based on 8 hour day
Rates per hour 1916 based on 10 hour day. In certain Yard Offices the 8 hour day was in effect in 1916 and produced a rate of 43c. per hour.
Basic day- 8 hours.
Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours.
Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours.
Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours.
Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours.
Basic day

10 hours.

Question No. 1
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916 Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
-	Per Month	Per Day	Per Hour	RemarksMachinists- Repair Shop	1921	$ cts. 163 20	$ cts. 6 80	cts. 85	Monthly wage based on 24 days1916	92 50	3 70	37	work per month at 8 hours per day (44 hours per week). Monthly wage based on 25 daysRunning Shops	
1921	176 80	6 80	85	work per month at 10 hours per day. Monthly wage based on 26 days1916	96 20	3 70	37	work per month at 8 hours per day. Monthly wage based on 26 daysCarmen- Carpenters, Loco., Coach and Bench	1921	162 35	6 80	85	work per month at 10 hours per day. number of employees in the Car1916	78 00	3 00	30	and Locomotive DepartmentsAir Brake Testers	1921	152 80	6 40	80	are still working under step rates provided for in agreement for1916	75 40	2 90	29	employees in the service at the time agreement was made; and scale up from rate for first year,Painters, Loco., Coach, and [DOT] Wood Machinists	1921	162 35	6 80	85	1916	75 40	2 90	29	to rate for fifth year, whenCarpenters (Freight)	1921	152 80	6 40	80	employee is then paid the 80c. or 85c. rate.1916	72 80	2 80	28	Upholsterers	1921	162 35	6 80	85	New employees must be paid the1916	05 00	2 50	25	full rate of 80c. or 85c.Air Brake Cleaners, Car Repairers and Oilers.. 1921	152 80	6 40	80	Car Inspectors in 1921 paid on1916	59 80	2 30	23	basis of 8 hours per day, andCar Inspectors, First Classl921	152 80	6 40	80	time and one half after 8 hours1916	85 00	3 27	29-7	and double time after 16 hours.Car Inspectors, Second Class	1921	152 80	6 40	80	In 1916-Were paid a monthly rate for 11 hours work per day,1916	70 00	2 69	24-5	overtime at time and one halfCar Inspectors, Third Classl921	152 80	6 40	80	up to 16 hours and double time1916	60 00	2 31	20-5	after 16 hours.
Trackmen-
Section Foremen.
Sectionmen	
Foremen, Extra Gangs...
.1921
.1921
1921
Assistant Foremen, Extra
Gangs	1921
Crossing Watchmen	1921
Bridge and Building Men-
B. and B. Foremen	1921
Carpenters	1921
1102s
Per Month
$137.80 to $145.60 $66.30 to $78.00
$100.88 $46.80 to $52.00
$144.30 to $166.40 $66.30 to $100.10
$137.80 $66.30 to $70.20
$96 72 $40.00 to $45.00
[Stage Direction]
$97.50 to $104.00
$141.44 to $149.76 $65.00 to $84.50
Per Day
$5.30 to $5.60 $2.55 to $3.00
[Stage Direction]
$1.80 to $2.00
$5.55 to $6.40 $2.55 to S3.85
[Stage Direction]
$2.55 to $2.70
[Stage Direction]
$1.33 to SI .50
[Stage Direction]
S3.75 to S4.00
S5.44 to $5.76 $2.50 to $3.25
Per Hour
661c. to 70c. 251c. to 30c.
48§c.
18c. to 20c.
69-3c. to 80c. 30c. to 381c.
661c.
251c. to 27c. 461c.
11c. to 121c.
78-6c.
371c. & 40c.
Remarks
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-12 hours.
Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
68c. to 72c. Basic day- 8 hours. 25c. to 321c. Basic day-10 hours.
[Stage Direction]
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916 Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System

Question No. 1-Con.
Per Month	Per Day	Per Hour	RemarksBridge, and Building Men-Bridgemen	-Con. ...1921 1916	$120.64 to *141 44 $58.50 to $78.00	$4.64 to $5.44 $2.25 to $3.00	58c. to 68c. 223c. to 30c.	Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.Pump Repairer	....1921 1916	$199.20 $ 85.00	$6.64 $3.27	83c. 32-7e.	Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.Pumpmen	....1921 1916	$110 00 to $116 00 $50.00 to $57.50	$4.23 to $4.46 $1.92 to $2.21	52*9c. to 55-7c. 19-2c. to 221c.	Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.Signalmen at Interlocked Crossings	1921 1916	$110.80 to $123.80 $55.00	$4.26 to $4.76 $2.12	53-2c. to 59-5c. 21-2c.	Basic day- 8 hours. Basic day-10 hours.
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Changes in Working Conditions, 1921-1916 Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
Question No. 2
Basic day decreased in 1921 as compared to 1916. In passenger service from 10 hours to o hours. In Freight, Work and Yard Switching, from 10 hours to 8 hours.	.
Note-The five hour day referred to in Passenger service, is brought about by the increase in allowance of miles per hour used in computing the basis for overtime. In 1916 this was computed at 10 miles per hour and in 1921 at 20 miles per hour. The increase affects the cost of all terminal time, as well as overtime. The adoption of a guaranteed monthly mileage on assigned runs affects runs which are only in operation 3 days per week.	. .	.Engineers in through freight service making more than 5 stops to pick up or set out cars belonging to their own train are paid Way Freight rates for full trip. In 1916, paid only Through Freight rates. Short Run Clause adopted w'hereby Engineers are paid 100 miles, or a minimum day for a trip, the mileage of which is 50 miles or less, and where it is over 50 miles, 100 miles is paid for first leg of run, plus terminal switching and overtime earned. In 1916 this would be paid for as continuous service, 10 miles per hour from the time of starting until return to terminal, plus terminal allowances and switching and overtime, if any earned.	.	_	.	„	, T mic
Yard Service- Continuous time now paid for the 20 minutes Engineers are allowed for meals. In 191b they were allowed 1 hour for meals, without pay.
Firemen (All Services)-
Same remarks apply as to Engineers.
C°ndpassenger Service- Overtime now paid in addition to monthly guarantee. In 1916 overtime could be used to make up monthly guarantee.	. T	,.Short Turn-around Service-Overtime now paid after 10 hours (8 hours wuthin 10 hours). In 191b overtime paid after 12 hours (8 hours within 12 hours).	.	_	.
Freight Service.-Basic day changed from 10 hours in 1916 to 8 hours in 1921, increasing the overtime rate from 10 miles per hour to 12§ miles per hour.
Brakemen and Baggagemen-
Same remarks as to Conductors.
Agents and Operators-	,	.,	...	.			„ , . „
mi.-Overtime and work on Sundays and Holidays paid at rate of time and one half. When called tor duty outside regular hours are allowed a minimum of three hours straight time at present rates. 1 he cost of a call outside regular hours is from SI .80 to $3.42 which includes the first two hours service. 1916.-Overtime and work on Sundays and Holidays paid at pro-rata rates. A call for work outside of regular hours was 50c. per call wrhich included the first hours' service. Telegraphers residing in station dwellings required to attend a schedule train due at his station within three hours of his regular hours of duty was only allowed 30c. for the call, which covered one hour's service.
Freight Shed Men-	...	,.	0 ,
Working day changed from 10 hours in 1916 to 8 hours in 1921, requiring us to pay overtime after 8 hours at time and one half.
Trackmen and Bridge and Building Men-
Working day changed from 10 hours in 1916 to 8 hours in 1921. 1921. In 1916 only after 10 hours.
Paid time and one-half after 8 hours in

[Stage Direction]
Comparative Monthly Compensation paid Engineers, Firemen, Conductors and Trainmen, 1921-1916,
allowing Average Overtime Conditions
Question No. 3
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
			M ileage Allowance per Day	Total	Rate	Amount	Increase
				Miles			
Engineers and Firemen. (Train). (Through Passenger Service. Trains	Compensation- Engineer	1921	188	5,640	$ cts. 6 56	$ cts. 369 98	$ cts.1 and 2, between Capreol and Fol-	1916	168	5,040	3 90	196 56	173 42eyet. Daily Distance 148 Miles. Average time on duty per day 7	Firemen..	.1921	188	5,640	5 12	288 77	hours 10 minutes.)	1916	168	5,040	2 45	123 48	165 29(Local Passenger Service- Trains 31	Engineer..	.1921	294	7,644	6 48	495 33	and 32, between Cobourg and To-	1916	2151	5,603	3 90	218 52	276 81ronto. Daily except Sunday. Distance 158 miles return. Average	Firemen..	.1921	294	7,644	4 96	379 14	time on duty per day 11 hours 50	1916	215i	5,603	2 45	137 27	241 87minutes.) (Local Passehger Service. Trains 76	Engineer..	.1921	260	6,760	6 40	432 64	and 75, between Westport and	1916	155	4(030	3 79	152 74	279 90Brockville. Daily except Sunday. Distance 88-8 miles. Average time	Fireman..	.1921	260	6,760	4 80	324 48	on duty per day 9 hours 30 minutes.)	1916	155	4,030	2 35	94 70	229 78(Through Freight Service. Trains	Engineer..	.1921	186-1	5,583	7 28	456 44	203 and 204, between Toronto and	1916	177-5	5,325	4 34	231 10	225 34Parry Sound, Daily. Distance . 143-4 miles. Average time on duty	Fireman..	.1921	186-1	5,583	5 52	308 18	per day 12 hours 25 minutes.)	1916	177-5	5,325	2 60	138 45	169 73(Local Freight Service. Between	Engineer..	.1921	189	4,914	8 04	395 08	Joliette and Hawkesbury. Daily	1916	139	3,614	4 84	174 92	220 16except Sunday. Distance 66 [DOT] 7 miles Average time on duty per day 13	Fireman..	.1921	189	4,914	6 08	298 77	hours.)	1916	139	3,614	2 90	104 81	193 96
Conductors and Trainmen- (Train)
Through Passenger Service. Trains 1 and 2, between Cap-reol and Hornepayne. Daily. Distance 296 * 4 miles.
Local Passenger Service. Trains 31 and 32 between Cobourg and Toronto. Daily, except Sunday. Short tum-a-round Passenger Run. Distance, Round Trip 157 miles. Average time on duty per day 8 hours 10 minutes. Elapsed time 14 hours 10 minutes.
Compensation-	-
Conductor.... 1921 1916
Baggageman.. 1921 1916
Brakeman.
.1921
Conductor___1921
Baggageman .1921 1916
Brakeman... 1921 1916
Miles
4.500
4.650
4.500
4.650
4.500
4.650
Rate
$ cts.
Amount
$ cts.
210 00
135.00
154.80
82.50
150.00
76.50
304.90
143.65
224.74
87.75
217.60
81.38
Increase
$ cts.
75.00
72.30
73.50
161.25
136.99
126.22
(In 1921 overtime paid after 10 hours exclusive of the monthly guarantee. 12 hours and used to make up monthly guarantee).
In 1916 overtime paid after

[Stage Direction]
Comparative Monthly Compensation Paid Engineers, Firemen, Conductors and Trainmen, 1921-1916,
Allowing Average Overtime Conditions.
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System.	*

Question No. 3-Con.
-	Miles	Rate	Amount	IncreaseConductors and Trainmen-Con.	Compensation-	$	$	$(Train)	Through Freight Service.	Conductor.... 1921	5,043	6.44	324.77	Trains 203 and 204 between	1916	4,770	4.00	190.80	133.97Toronto and Parry Sound.	Daily. Distance 147-3 miles.	Brakeman.... 1921	5,043	5.12	258.20	Average time on duty per day	1916	4,770	2.67	127.36	130.8410 hours 40 minutes. .	Local Freight Service. Between	Conductor.... 1921	3,302	. 6.96	229.82	Capreol and Parry Sound.	1,586	6.44	102.14	Daily except Sunday. Dist-	
331.96	ance 127 miles. Average time	1916	3,302	4.50	148.59	on duty per day 11 hours 50	780	4.00	31.20	minutes.	
179.79	152.17Brakeman.... 1921	3,302	5.52	182.27	1,586	5.12	81.20	
263.47	1916	3,302	3.00	99.06	780	2.67	20.83	119.89	143 58

[Stage Direction]
Monthlv Earnings of Shop Machinists, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shed Men, Trackmen and Bridge and Building Men, 1921-1916.
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
Based on Regular Working Hours only.
Question No. 4
Shop Machinists-		$163.20
Repair Shops			1921	
	1916	$92.50
Running Shops			1921	$197.20
	1916	$107.30
Carmen			1921	$152.80 to $172.00
	1916	$60.00 to $94.81
Agents and Operators-		1921	$135.00 to $238.00
Agents			
	1916	$66.00 to $175.00
Operators				1921	$125.00 to $209.24
	1916	$60.00 to $103.84
Freight Shed Men-		
Foremen			1921	$155.00
	1916	$90.00
Checkers			1921	$127.50 to $141.50
	1916	$60.00 to $ 65.00
Stowers and Loaders			1921	$116.48 to $119.60
	1916	$57.20
Truckers and Porters			1921	$110.24 to $114.40
	1916	$54.60
Assistant Shed Foremen				1921	$145.00 to $150 00
	1916	$80.00

[Stage Direction]
Monthly Earnings Shop Machinists, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shedmen, Trackmen and Bridge
and Building Men, 1921-1916

Question No. 4-Con.
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System Based on Regular Working Hours only
Trackmen-		
Section Foremen			*137.80 to *145.60 *66.30 to * 78.00
	1916	
Sectionmen			*100.88 $49.40 to * 52.00
	1916	
Extra Gang Foremen			$144.30 to *166.40
	1916	*66.30 to $100.10
Assistant Foremen Extra Gangs			*137.80
	1916	*66.30 to $ 70.20
Bridge and Building Men-		
Bridge and Building Foremen			*163.80
	1916	*97.50 to *104.00
Carpenters			*141.44 to $149.76 *65.00 to * 84 50
	1916	
Bridgemen			$120.64 to $141.44
	1916	$58.50 to * 78 00
Pump Repairers			$199.20 *85.00
	1916	
Pumpmen					$110.00 to *116.00
	1916	$50.00 to $ 57 50
Signalmen at Interlocked Crossings			1921	$110.80 to *123.80
	1916	*55.00

[Stage Direction]
Monthly Earnings of the Classes of Employees named in Question 4 based on rates paid 1921, but working Regular hours in effect 1916, as compared with rates paid in 1916
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System
Question No. 5
A 1921 represents monthly earnings of employees based on regular hours in effect 1916 (10), at 1921 rates per hour.
The application of 1916 conditions would mean paying employees in the service two hours per day more than at present, as the basic day would become 10 hours; this, however, would permit of a reduction in the number of employees from the requirements under the eight hour day.
B 1921 represents monthly earnings of employees based on the present daily wage for 8 hours being continued for a ten hour day, which of course would mean a reduction in the rate per hour.
		"A"	"B"
Shop Machinists-			
Repair Shops	*212.50	$163.201916	92 50	92 50Running Shops	221 00	176 801910	96 20	96 20Carmen-	Carpenters, Loco. Coach and Bench	1921	221 00	162 351916	78 00	78.00Air Brake Testers	1921	208.00	152.801916	75.40	75.40Painters (Coach & Loco.) Wood Machinists	1921	221.00	162.351916	75.40	75.40Carpenters (Freight)	1921	208.00	152.801916	72.80	72.80

[Stage Direction]
Monthly Earnings of the classes of Employees named in Question 4, based on rates paid 1921, but working Regular hours in effect 1916, as compared with rates paid in 1916
Eastern Lines-Canadian Northern System

Question No. 5-Con.
Carmen-Con.	"A"	"B"Upholsterers	1921	$221.00	$162.351916	65.00	65.00Air Brake Cleaners, Car Repairers and Oilers	1921	208.00	152.801916	59.80	59.80Car Inspectors (1st Class)	1921	228.80	152.801916	85.00	85.00Car Inspectors (2nd Class)	1921	228.80	152.801916	70.00	70.00Car Inspectors (3rd Class)	1921	228.80	152.801916	60.00	60.00Agents and Operators-	$135.00 to $238.00Agents	1921	$169.00 to $296.40	1916	$66.00 to $175.00	$66.00 to $175.00Operators	1921	$156.00 to 212.42	$125.00 to $170.001916	$60.00 to $90.00	$60.00 to $ 90.00Freight Shed Men-	Foremen	1921	$193.70	$155.001916	90 00	90 00Checkers	1921	$159.12 to $176.80	$127.50 to $141.501916	$60.00 to $65.00	$ 60.00 to $ 65.00Stowers and Loaders	1921	$145.60 to $149.50	$116.48 to $119.601916	$57.20	$57.20Truckers and Porters	1921	$137.80 to $143.00	$110.24 to $114.401916	$54.60	$54.60Asst. Shed Foremen	1921	$181.22 to $187.46	$145.00 to $150.001916	$80.00	$80.00Trackmen-	Section Foremen	1921	$172.90 to $182.00	$137.80 to $145.601916	$66.30 to $78.00	$66.30 to $78.00Seetionmen	1921	$126.10	$100.881916	$49.40 to $52.00	$49.40 to $52.00Extra Gang Foremen	1921	$180.18 to $208.00	$144.30 to $166.401916	$66.30 to $100.10	$66.30 to $100.10Asst. Foremen Extra Gangs	1921	$172.90	$137.801916	$66.30 to $70.20	$66.30 to $70.20Bridge & Building Men-	B. & B. Foremen	1921	$204.36	$163.801916	$97.50 to $104.00	$97.50 to $104.00Carpenters	1921	$176.80 to 187.20	$141.44 to $149.761916	$65.00 to $84.50	$65.00 to $84.50Bridgemen	1921	$150.80 to $176.80	$120.64 to $141.441916	$58.50 to $78.00	$58.50 to $78.00Pump Repairers	1921	$215.80	$199.201916	85.00	85.00Pumpmen	1921	$137.54 to $144.82	$110.00 to $116.001916	$50.00 to $57.50	$50.00 to $57.50Signalmen at Interlocked Crossings	1921	$138.32 to $154.70	$110.80 to $123.801916	55.00	55.00
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Compensation or Privileges in Addition to Railway Pay Received by Employees 
Question No. 6-
Agents and Operators-
Agents are allowed living quarters in stations and free fuel and light for which they pay from $2 to $5 per month. The money value of this, if the Agent had to secure lodgings and supply his own fuel, would be approximately, for rent, $10 per month, and for fuel and light, $9 per month.
Agents are also allowed Commission for handling Express and Telegraph business. This is difficult to average on a monthly basis as the amounts vary from $5 to $100 per month.
Agents and operators are granted free transportation for themselves and family at least once a year, and two weeks holidays per year with pay.
Trackmen-
Section Foremen are allowed to occupy Company's dwellings at reduced rentals of $5 per month. Tho money value of this, if they had to provide their own lodgings, would be approximately $10 per month.
Trackmen are granted the same privileges as all other employees in respect to free or redaced transportation for themselves and family.

[Stage Direction]
Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916
Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines
Question No. 1
-	Per Month Minimum	Per Day	Per Hour	Overtime Per hour	Remarks
Engineers-	(See Remarks;				
					
Passenger	1921*1GG.40 to *176.f.n	$6.40 to $6.80	$1.28 to *1.36	*1.28 to *1.36	Basic day 100 miles or less (5 hours or less) 20 miles per hour.Through Freight	x	1916 *97.50 to $110.50	*3.75 to *4.25	37$c. to 42£c.	37§c. to 42^c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10 miles per hour.1921*185.12 to *207.48	*7.12 to *7.98	89c. to 99fc.	*1.335 to SI,49|	xBasic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 12§ miles per hour.Way Freight	x	1916*106.GO to *117.00	*4.10 to *4.50	41c. to 45c.	41c. to 45c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10 miles per hour.1921*198.64 to *221.00	*7.64 to *8.50	95£c. to 1.061	*1.43? to $1.59|	Basic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 121 miles per hour.Yard Switching	x	1916*113.10 to *123.50	*4.35 to *4.75	43£c. to 47£c.	43Jc. to 47Jc.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10 miles per hour.1921*183.04 to *187.20	*7.04 to *7.20	88c. to 90c.	*1.32 to *1.35	Basic day 8 hours or less.Firemen-	1910 *94.90 to *109.20	*3.65 to *4.20	36$c. to 42c.	36|c. to 42c.	Basic day 10 hours or less. xl921 Overtime paid at time and one half. 1916 Overtime paid at pro-rata rates per hour.Passenger	1921*124.80 to *137.80 1916 *65.00 to *73.58	*4.80 to *5.30 *2.50 to *2.83	60c. to 66Jc. 25c. to 28-3c.	90c. to 99fc. 25c. to 28-3c.	Through Freight	1921*137.28 to *160.16	*5.28 to *6.16	66c. to 77c.	99c. to *1,155	Basie day and overtime conditions for EngineersWay Freight	1916 *70.98 to *78 00	*2.73 to S3.00	27-3c. to 30c.	27-3c. to 30c.	apply also to the Firemen in the various1921*147.68 to *170.56 1916 *77.48 to *84.50	*5.68 to *6.56 *2.98 to *3.25	71c. to 82c. 29-8e. to 32Jc.	*1.065 to *1.23 29-8c. to 32§c.	classes of Service.Yard Switching	1921*145.00 to *148.72 1916 *63.18 to *74.62	*5.60 to *5.72 *2.43 to *2.87	70c. to 71£c. 24-3c. to 28-7c.	*1.05 to *1.075 24-3c. to 28-7c.	Note.-Rate per month based on 2,600 miles.Passenger Service	1921 *210.00	*7.00	93$c.	w "W 00	Basic day 150 miles or less (7J hours or less) 20 miles per hour.t Through Freight	1916 135.00	4.50	64-3c.	45c.	Basic day 139 miles or less (7 hours or less) 20 miles per hour.1921 180.32	6.44	80ic.	$1.20?	Basic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 12} miles per hour.1916 104.00	4.00	40c.	40c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10 miles per hour.1746	COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
' Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916
Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines

Question No. 1-Con.
Per Month	Per day	Per Hour	Overtime	RemarksMinimum	Minimum	Per hour	Way Freight	1921	(See Remarks) 194.88	6.96	87c.	$1,301	Basic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 12J miles per hour.1916	117.00	4.50	45c.	45c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10miles per hour.Yard Switching	1921	194.88	6.96	87c.	$1,301	Basic day 8 hours or less.1916	$93.GO to $104.00	$3.60 to $4.00	36c. to 40c.	36c. to 40c.	Basic day 10 hours or less.Baggagemen- Passenger Service	1921	$154.80	$5.16	69c.	64£c.	Basic day 150 miles or less (7£ hours or less) 20 miles per hour.1916	82.50	2.75	45-8c.	271c.	Basic day 117 miles or less (6 hours or less) 20miles per hour.Hrakemen- Passenger Service	1921	$150.00	$5.00	66fc.	624c.	Basic day 150 miles or less (74 hours or less) 20 miles per hour.1916	76.50	2.55	42jc.	251 c.	Basic day 119 miles or less (6 hours or less) 20miles per hour.Through Freight	1921	143.36	5.12	64c.	98c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 12J miles per hour.1916	69.42	2.67	26-7c.	26-7c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10miles per hour.Way Freight	1921	154.56	5.52	69c.	$1,031	Basic day 100 miles or less (8 hours or less) 124 miles per hour.1916	78.00	3.00	30c.	30c.	Basic day 100 miles or less (10 hours or less) 10miles per hour.Yard Switching	1921	181.44	6.48	81c.	SI.21J	Basic day 8 hours or less.1916	$85.80 to $96.20	$3.30 to $3.70	3c. to 37c.	33c. to 37c.	Basic day 10 hours or less.
1921-Overtime in all classes of service outside of passenger service paid for at time and one half. 1916-Overtime in all classes of service paid at pro-rata rates per hour.
Note.-Rate per month in Passenger Service bused on Minimum Wage guarantee.
Rate per month in Freight service-1921-based on guarantee of 2800 miles.
1916-based on guarantee of 2600 miles.

[Stage Direction]
Comparative Rates paid 1921-1916
Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines
Questic No. 1-Con.
		Per Month Excl. of Overtime or Sunday	Per Day	1 Per Hour	Overtime Per hour	Remarks
Repair Shops-						
Machinists	..1921	$162.35	$6.80	85c.	$1.27 to $1.70	Basic day, 8 hours.Running Repairs-	1916	85.62	3.37J	374c.	564c. to 75c.	Basic day, 9 hours.Machinists	..1921	$176.80	$6.80	85c.	$1,274 to $1.70	Basic day 80 hours.Carmen-Repair Shops-	1916	97.50	3.75	37*c.	564c. to 75c.	Basic day 10 hours.Cabinet Makers	...1921	162.35	6.80	85e.	$1,274 to $1.70	Basic day 8 hours.Coach Loco, and Bench Carpenters	1916	75.35	2.97	33c.	49§c. to 66c.	...1921	162.35	6.80	85c.	$1,274 to $1.70	Basic day 8 hours.Coach Loco. Painters, Varnishing and Lettering	1916	73.07	2.88	32c.	48c. to 64c.	. 1921	162.35	6.80	85c.	$1.274 to $1.70	Basic day 8 hours.Wood Machinists	1916	79.92	3.15	35c.	52§c. to 70c.	Basic day 9 hours....1921	162.35	6.80	85c.	$1,274 to $1.70	Basic day 8 hours.Painters Freight Car	1916	70.78	2.79	31e.	46£c. to 62c.	. .. 1921	152.80	6.40	80c.	$1.20 to $1.60	Basic day 8 hours.Carmen-Running Repairs-	1916	57.20	2.25	25c.	372c. to 50c.	Basic day 9 hours.Air Brake Tester	...1921	166.40	6.40	80c.	$1.20 to $1.60	Basic day 8 hours.Car Repairers	1916	68.90	2.65	26Jc.	49Jc. to 53c.	Basic day 10 hours....1921	166.40	6.40	80c.	$1.20 to $1.60	Basic day 8 hours.Car Inspectors	1916	$65.10 to $70.20	$2.50 to $2.70	25c. to 27c.	37^c. to 54c.	Basic day 10 hours....1921	166.40	6.40	80c.	$1.20 to $1.60	Basic day 8 hours.Freight Shed Men-	1916	$78.65 to $82.22	$3,024 to $3.164	274c.	414c. to 55c.	Basic day 11 hours.Freight Checkers	...1921	$127.50 to $141.50	$4.90 to $5.44	61*c. to 68c.	91Je. to $1.02	Basic day 8 hours.Stowers and Loaders	1916	$67.50 to $72.50	$2.59-6 to $2.79	25-9c. to 27-9c.	38-9c. to 41-9c.	Basic day 10 hours...1921	$116.48 to $119.60	$4.48 to $4.60	56c. to 57Jc.	84c. to 86£c.	Basic day 8 hours.Freight Truckers and Porters	1916	$62.40	$2.40	24c.	36c.	...1921	$110.24 to $114.40	$4.24 to $4.40	53c. to 55c.	794c. to 824c.	Basic day 8 hours.1916	$52.00 to $58.50	$2.00 to $2.25	20c. to 22|c.	30c. to 33}c.	Basic day 10 hours.1748	COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Canadian Government-Eastern Lines.

Question No. 1-Con.
Trackmen-	/
Example as to cost of Crossing Watchmen in 1921, as compared with 1916.
Crossing where continuous service required for the 24 hours (exclusive of Sunday).
1921-3 men 8 hours each at $96.72 per month	
1916-2 men 12 hours each at 67.60 per month	
Increase 114J per cent, or	
If Crossing only required protection during 10 hours in each 24 hours, cost would be-
1921-1 man, 1 day	$3.72	
Overtime, 2 hours	 1.391	$5,111x26	
1916-1 man, 1 day	 2.00 x 26	
Increase 155 per cent, or

[Stage Direction]
Question No. 1.-Con.	Comparative Rates Paid 1921-1916. Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines.
	Per month exclusive of overtime	Per day	Per hotir	Overtime	Remarks
				Per hour	
T rackmen-					
Section Foremen, Yards	1921*139.10 to $145.60	$5.35 to $5.60	66-7c. to 70c.	*1.00} to $1.05	Basic day 8 hours.Section Foremen on Line	1916 $71.50 to $ 78.00	$2.75 to $3.00	27} to 30	411c. to 45c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $137.80	$5.30	66J c.	99}c.	Basic day 8 hours.Sectionmen, Yard	1916 $ 67.60	$2.60	26c.	39c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $100.88	$3.88	48}e.	72}c.	Basic day 8 hours.Sectionmen on Line	1916 $ 53.30	$2.05	20lc.	30}c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $100.88	$3.88	48}e.	72}c.	Basic day 8 hours.Extra Gang Foremen	1916 $ 52.00	$2.00	20c.	30c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921*143.30 to $166.40	$5.55 to $6.40	69-lc. to 80c.	$1.04 to $1.20	Basic day 8 hours.Asst. Extra Gang Foremen	1916$ 80.60 to $ 97.50	$3.10 to $3.75	31c. to 37£c.	461c. to 561c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $137.80	$5.30	66} c.	99fc.	Basic day 8 hours.Track and Bridge Watchmen	1916 $67.60	$2.60	26c.	39c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $100.88	$3.88	48}c.	72}c.	Basic day 8 hours.Crossing Watchmen	1916 $ 52.00	$2.00	20c.	30c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $96.72	$3.72	46} c.	69}c.	Basic day 8 hours.Track and Crossing Watchmen	1916 $ 52 00 1921-Eight eonsecutiv	$2.00 e hours to const	20c. itute a day.	30c.	Basic day 10 hours.1916-Ten hours in eac consecutive.	h 24 hours to co	nstitute a day.	Hours may be inter	m ittent and need not beBridge and Building Men-	B. & B. Foremen, Shops	1921S169.00 to $172.90	$6.50 to $6.65	81}c. to 83}c.	*1.21.7 to $1.25}	Basic day 8 hours.B. & B. Foremen, Road	1916 $92.30 to $96.20	$3.55 to $3.70	35§c. to 37c.	531c. to 551c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $163.80	$6.30	78}c.	$1.18}	Basic day 8 hours.Carpenters (Skilled Mechanics)	1916 S 87.10	$3.35	33}c.	50}c.	19218141.44 to $149.76	$5.44 to $5.76	68c. to 72c.	$1.02 to $1.06	Basic day 8 hours.1916 $63.70 to $71.50	$2.45 to $2.75	24}c. to 27}e.	36}c. to 41}c.	Basic day 10 hours.Steel Bridge Foremen	1921$163.80 to $188.50	$6.30 to $7.25	78|c. to 90-5	$1.18-1 to $1.36	Basic day 8 hours.Bridgemen, or Rough Carpenters	1916 $87.10 to $111.80	$3.35 to $4.30	33^c. to 43c.	50}c. to 0.64}c.	Basic day 10 hours.19218120.64 to $141.44	$4.64 to $5.44	58c. to 68c.	87c. to $1.02	Basic day 8 hours.Painter Foremen	1916 $53.90 to $59.80	$2.05 to $2.30	20} to 23c.	30} to 34}c.	Basic*day 10 hours.1921 $157.30	$6.05	75fc.	$1.13}	Basic day 8 hours.Painters	1916 $63.70 to $87.10	$2.45 to $3.35	241c. to 331c.	361c. to 501c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $141.44	$5.44	68c.	$1.02	Basic day 8 hours.Mason and Concrete Foremen	1916 $53.30 to $66.30	$2.05 to $2.55	20}c. to 25}c.	30|c. to 37}c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $163.80	86.30	78} c.	$1.18}	Basic day 8 hours.M asons	1916 $83.20 to $109.20	$3.20 to $4.20	32c. to 42c.	48c. to 63c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $141.44	$5.44	68c.	$1.02	Basic day 8 hours.Pump Repairers	1916 $70.20 to $96.20	$2.70 to $3.70	27c. to 37c.	40}c. to 55}c.	Basic day 10 hours.1921 $199.20	$6.64	83c.	$1.24}	Basic day 8 hours.Pumpmen	1916 $90.00	$3.46	34 Vioc.	51 Vice.	Basic day 10 hours.1921*110.00 to $116.00	$4.23 to $4.46	$52.7 to $55}	79.3c. to 83-5c.	Basic day 8 hours.1916 $57-50 to $63.50	$2.21 to $2.44	$22-lo. to $24-4c.	$33[DOT]1c. to $36-6c.	Basic day 10 hours.
Pumpmen-*1921-Eight consecutive hours to constitute a day.
1916-Ten hours in each twenty-four hours (not necessarily consecutive) to constitute a day.
1750	COMMONS

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Changes in Working Conditions, 1921-1916 Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines
Question No. 2
Engineers and Firemen-
1921. Basic Working day changed as follows:-
Passenger Service-
Basic day, 100 miles, (5 hours or less) at 20 miles per hour.
Short Turn-Around Runs, Suburban Branch Lines, etc.
In 1916 were paid at 10 miles per hour. Overtime paid after ten hours, where time exceeded the mileage . Now paid on basis of eight hours work within 10 hours, and for all overtime after 10 hours, as well as for all mileage made during the day.
Mixed, Freight, Yard and Work Service-
Basic day 100 miles, 8 hours or less, at 12| miles per hour.
Overtime-1916-all classes of service based on 10 miles per hour at pro-rata rate per hour.
Overtime-1921-Passenger Service, 20 miles per hour at pro rata rates per hour.
Mixed Freight, Yard and Work Train Service-18f miles per hour, equal to time and one-half.
Preparatory allowances at Initial Terminal.
1916-No arbitrary allowance rule in effect.
1921-30 Minutes arbitrary allowance for preparing engine for road trip.
Conductors and Trainmen-
Passenger Service.
Short Turn-Around, Suburban, Branch Lines, etc.
1921-Overtime paid after 8 hours within 10 consecutive hours and for all time after 10 hours. 1916-Overtime paid after 8 hours within 12 consecutive hours and for all time after 12 hours. The spread of hours reduced from 12 in 1916 to 10 in 1921, after which overtime accrues.
Mixed Freight and Yard Service-
1921-Overtime paid at time and one-half or 18f miles per hour.
1916-Overtime paid at pro-rata rates or 10 miles per hour.
1921-Basic day 8 hours-100 miles, or 12£ miles per hour.
1916-Basic day 10 hours-100 miles, or 10 miles per hour.
Increase in cost of overtime, exclusive of increase in rates per day-87£%.
Agents and Operators-
Basic day-1921 8 hours, overtime at time and one-half.
1916 10 hours, overtime at pro-rata rates.
Special Calls-1921-Minimum allowance, 3 hours pro-rata.
Sunday	1916-Minimum allowance, 30c. which included the first hour's service.
Special Calls-1921-Minimum allowance, 3 hours at 65c.-SI .95.
1916-Minimum allowance, 50c. which included the first hour's service. If living in Railway dwelling, was only allowed 30c. for each call, to include first hour's service.
Starting time-1921-Between 6.30 and 9 a.m.
1916-Between 6.00 and 8 a.m.	,
Trackmen and Bridge and Building Men-
Basic Day-1921-8 hours.
1916-10 hours (except Watchmen). Overtime-1921-Time and one-half, after 8 hours.
1916-Time and one-half, after 10 hours.
Pumpmen, Track and Bridge Watchmen, Crossing Watchmen-
1921-8 hours continuous time to constitute a day.
1916-10 hours in each 24 hours to constitute a day. Hours of work need not be continuous but may be intermittent. This manner of working meant paying for service of work performed only.
[Stage Direction]
CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS Changes in Working Conditions, 1921-1916 Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines

Question No. 2-Con.
Carmen-
Repair Shops.
1921-Basic day 8 hours.
1916-Basic day 9 hours.
Running Work.
1921-Basic day 8 hours.
1916-Basic day 10 hours-Except Car Inspectors.
Car Inspectors.
1921-Basic day 8 hours.
1916-Basic day 11 hours.
Overtime-
Repair Shops.
1921-Time and one-half after 8 hours and Sundays and Holidays.
1916-Time and one-half after 9 hours and Sundays and Holidays.
Double time after 16 hours. Double time after 18 hours-
Running Work (except Car Inspectors).
1921-Time and one-half after 8 hours and Sundays and Holidays. Double time after 16 hours. 1916-Time and one-half after 10 hours and Sundays and Holidays. Double time after 18 hours.
Car Inspectors.
1921-Same conditions as other Carmen.
1916-Time and one-half after 11 hours. Double time after 18 hours.
Shop Machinists-
Repair Shops.
1921-Basic day 8 hours.
1916-Basic day 9 hours.
Running Shops.
1921-Basic day 8 hours.
1916-Basic day 10 hours.
Overtime-
Repair Shops[DOT]
1921-Time and one-half after 8 hours, Sundays and Holidays. Double time after 16 hours.
1916-Time and one-half after 9 hours. Double time after 18 hours.
Running Work.
1921-Time and one-half after 8 hours and Sundays and Holidays. Double time after 16 hours. 1916-Time and one-half after 10 hours, and Sundays and Holidays. Double time after 18 hours.

[Stage Direction]
Comparative Monthly Compensation paid Engineers, Firemen, Conductors and Trainmen, 1921-1916, allowing average Overtime Conditions.
Question No. 3.
Canadian Government-Eastern Lines.
-	-		Mileage Allowance per day	Total Miles	Rate	Amount	Increase
Engineer and Firemen-	Co?npensation						
(Train)	$ cts.	$ cts.	$ cts.(Through Passenger Service.-	Engineer	.1921	145	4,350	6.64	288.84	Trains 1 and 2 between Moncton	1916	130	3,900	4.25	165.75	123.09and Truro. Daily distance	125 miles. Average time on	Firemen	. 1921	145	4,350	5.20	226.20	duty per day, 5 hours, 30	1916	130	3,900	2.83	110.37	115.83minutes).	(Local Passenger Service.-	Engineer	.1921	192	4,992	6.48	323.48	Trains 21 and 22 Springhill	1916	135	3,510	4.25	149.18	174.30Jet. to Moncton and Return.	Firemen	.1921	192	4,992	4.96	247.69	Daily except Sunday. Dis-	1916	135	3,510	2.83	99.30	148.30tance 130 miles. Elapsed time	14 hours, 30 minutes. Actual	time on duty, 7 hours, 15	minutes).	(Through Freight Service.-	Engineer	. 1921	200	5,200	7.84	407.68	Between Moncton and Truro.	1916	140	3,640	4.50	163.80	243.88Distance 125 miles. Average	Firemen	. 1921	200	5,200	6.00	312.00	time on duty per day 14	1916	140	3,640	3.00	109.20	202.80hours, 22 minutes).	(Local (Way) Freight Service-	Engineer	1921	196	5,096	7.80	397.48	Average Run. Distance 90	1916	128	3,328	4.75	158.08	239.40miles. Average time on duty	Firemen	.1921	196	5,096	5-92	301.68	per day, 12 hours, 48 minutes)	1916	128	3,328	3.25	108.16	193.52Conductors and Trainmen-	(Train)	(Through Passenger Service.-	.1921	4,819	4 67	225 05	Trains 9 and 10 between St.	1916	4,819	3.25	156.62	68.43John and Halifax. Daily	Baggageman..	..1921	4,819	3.44	165.77	except Sunday. Distance 278	1916	4,819	2.35	113.25	52.52miles. Time on duty, 10	..1921	4,819	3 33	160 47	hours, 35 minutes).	1916	4,819	2.15	103.61	56.86(Local Passenger Service-	Conductor....	.1921	$10.94	284.44	Springhill to Moncton and	1916	4.50	135.00	149.44return. Daily except Sun-	Baggageman..	..1921	8.06	209.56	day. Distance 130 round	1916	2.75	82.50	127.06trip. Elapsed time 14 hr.,	Brakeman....	. 1921	7.81	203.06	30 min. Time on duty per	1916	2.55	76.50	126.56day 7 hr., 15 min.).	(Through Freight Service-	Conductor... .	.1921	197	5,122	6.44	329.86	Between Moncton and Truro.	1916	139	3,614	4.00	144.56	185.30Distance 125 miles. Aver-	Brakeman....	. 1921	197	5,122	5.12	262.25	age time on duty per day,	1916	139	3,614	2.67	96.49	165.7613 hr., 52 min.).	(Local (Way) Freight Service-	Conductor....	.1921	190	4,940	6.96	343.82	Average run. Distance, 90	1916	128	3,328	4.50	149.76	194.00miles. Average time on duty	Brakeman....	. 1921	190	4,940	5.52	272.69	per day, 12 hr., 48 min.)	1916	128	3,328	3.00	99.84	172.85

[Stage Direction]
Monthly Earnings of Shop Machinists, Carmen, Agents and Operators, Freight Shed Men, Track -
men and Bridge and Building Men
Canadian Government-Eastern Lines

Question No. 4-
Practically the same as Canadian Northern System-Eastern Lines

[Stage Direction]
Monthly Earnings of the Classes of Employees Named in Question Four Based on Rates Paid 1921 but Working Regular Hours in Effect 1916, as Compared with Rates Paid in 1916
Canadian Government-Eastern Lines

Question No. 5-
Practically the same as Canadian Northern System-Eastern Lines.

[Stage Direction]
Compensation or Privileges in Addition to Railway Pay Received by Employees Canadian Government Railways-Eastern Lines
Question, No. 6-
Station Agents-
Agents entitled to occupy station dwellings (with free fuel and light) for a nominal rental of from $2 to $5 per month. The value of the rent would be approximately $10 per month. The value of free fuel and light would be approximately $9 per month.
Agents and Operators enjoy in common with other Railway employees, free and reduced transportation. Trackmen-
Section Foremen are allowed use of section dwellings free of charge. They are allowed same transportation privileges as other employees, and in isolated territory, and along the Transcontinental railway trackmen are granted market passes so as to enable them to purchase at points where prices are the most reasonable.

Friday, April 8, 1921.